One of the more anticipated moments in the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was when Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., got his chance to ask questions.
Specter is not only a former Republican, he is the former GOP chairman of the committee, so there was some expectation that he might be a tough questioner among the Democrats on the panel, but that was not the case.
Many of the Republicans in the past two days have relentlessly grilled Sotomayor on her past speeches and remarks in which she talked of using personal experiences and prejudices to make rulings and suggested the court should be setting new policy. Among her most controversial statements was one in which she said a “wise Latina” could reach a better decision than a white male. Sotomayor has since tried to distance herself from those comments, but Republicans keep asking her about them, and Specter appeared to chastise them for it.
“There has been a lot of talk about a wise Latina woman,” Specter told Sotomayor when he took the microphone. “And I think that this proceeding has tended to make a mountain out of a molehill.”
Specter switched parties earlier this year when it became clear he could not beat a more conservative Republican in an upcoming primary.
