Commentary: TV — Not conservative? Then put background aside

Never have I wanted more to throw a brick through the screen of my television.

Watching Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sit stoically through a succession of white men, perched at the head of the whitest, malest, most powerful political institution in the country — the U.S. Senate — telling a Latina that her Hispanic heritage should mean nothing in her work as a judge, was heartbreaking.

"Our legal system is at a dangerous crossroads. Down one path is the traditional American system, so admired around the world, where judges impartially apply the law to the facts without regard to personal views," said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama during the first day of Sotomayor's confirmation hearings Monday. "Down the other path lies a brave new world, where words have no true meaning, and judges are free to decide what facts they choose to see. … I reject that view, and Americans reject that view."

Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, also on Monday: "Judge Sotomayor, you are nominated to the highest court of the land, which has the final say on the law. As such, it's even more important for the Senate to ascertain whether you can resist the temptations to mold the Constitution to your own personal beliefs and preferences. It's even more important for the Senate to ascertain whether you can dispense justice without bias or prejudice."

For anyone who knows how the pointedly conservative views of justices such as Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas have shaped their decisions, this posturing was worse than disingenuous. It was a neon sign: Judges get to use their personal backgrounds to decide cases when they're conservative.

GOP legislators have worked themselves into a lather over Sotomayor's comment about a "wise Latina" making better decisions than a white male. However true that might be regarding discrimination cases, it's the kind of in-your-face racial absolutism that was a perfect softball for conservatives bent on twisting her original meaning.

On Tuesday, Sotomayor tried to walk back that comment, dismissing the line as a clumsy mistake and insisting she would "state up front, unequivocally and without doubt, I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judging."