Sotomayor's 'Word Choice Was Poor': Gibbs

By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted May 29, 2009 5:02 PM CDT
Sotomayor's 'Word Choice Was Poor': Gibbs
President Barack Obama announces federal appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor as his nominee for the Supreme Court.   (AP Photo)

Robert Gibbs said today Sonia Sotomayor regrets the way she phrased 2001 comments that have some Republicans calling the Supreme Court nominee a racist, the Hill reports. “I think she'd say that her word choice was poor,” the White House press secretary said. He suggested that Sotomayor was not trying to say Latina women make better judges than white men, but that “your experiences impact your understanding.”

Gibbs also took time to address critics of Sotomayor, including Rush Limbaugh, who has compared the judge to KKK member David Duke. “I don't think you have to be the nominee to find what was said today offensive,” Gibbs said, adding that it’s “hard to completely quantify the kind of outrage I think anybody would feel.”
(More racism stories.)

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