Senators' comments show effort to squelch different perspectives

BOSTON — I have long been a collector of sports metaphors, but I never expected such a treasure of memorabilia to come out of a Senate hearing room. At times, it sounded more like the all-star game than the confirmation of a Supreme Court justice. I could have organized an office pool guessing the number of times senators would say "balls and strikes" (13) or "umpire" (16).

The members of the Judiciary Committee riffed on the idea of judge-as-umpire. Alas, no comment could trump Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions' pre-hearing pitch for a "blindfolded justice calling the balls and strikes fairly and objectively." YES! Just what we need in the big leagues! An umpire wearing a blindfold!

But this was not just jock-talk. Or a play for impartiality. It was a thinly veiled anxiety attack at the idea that Sonia Sotomayor might be a team player for Liberals vs. Conservatives or, worse yet, the Girls and Latina Team vs. the White Boys.

The specter haunting Sotomayor was that "Wise Latina Woman." What seemed radical to the Republican committeemen was her hint that a WLW "with the richness of her experiences" might make wiser decisions than ... THEM! She might even, as Texas Sen. John Cornyn said darkly, want to "advance causes or groups."

This was the lineup at the hearings. Sotomayor sat stoically while a pugnacious Sessions lectured her on the role of a judge and a patronizing Lindsey Graham told her she had a reputation as a "bit of a bully."

The would-be first Latina justice faced a committee with only two women members in order to get confirmed by a Senate with only 17 women for a seat on a court with only one other woman. And yet Sotomayor had to prove that she wasn't biased: "Men and women (are) equally capable of being wise and fair judges."

Also at stake — or at bat if you prefer — were the judge's earlier musings about the importance of different life experiences: "I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on gender and my Latina heritage." She also said: "I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society." A horrified Sessions called this "philosophically incompatible with the American system."

I am, of course, charmed to see conservatives decrying gender differences as un-American, since they long used differences to justify women's second-class status. Better they should turn their wrath on talk-show host G. Gordon Liddy, who said of Sotomayor: "Let's hope that the key conferences aren't when she's menstruating."