It’s been generally acknowledged that a Republican Supreme Court nominee who had said, à la Sotomayor, that the richness of his experience as a wise white male would permit him to reach better conclusions than a Latina female would long ago have declared that he had decided to spend more time with his family. But let’s stretch credulity and imagine that the nomination of this insensitive white oaf had somehow managed to survive into a second week.

In a last-ditch effort to keep hope for his confirmation alive, he does a round of interviews with sympathetic Republican senators. The goal of course will be to “clarify” his remarks, rendering them politically correct. But after the interviews, it emerges that he actually added fuel to the fire. His “clarification” consisted of saying that maybe his comment meant that “with this background I’m a better listener. I listen for better things.” Buh-bye. See ya. Drop us a postcard sometime from the deep back woods where you’ll be living out the rest of your miserable existence in exile. Yet that catastrophe of a “clarification” is precisely what Sonia Sotomayor said to senators during her rehabilitation tour yesterday. Here’s the relevant paragraph from the Politico report [emphasis added]:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, said she didn’t acknowledge using a poor choice of words but put in a context for him to understand better. She told him: “’basically it means that’s part of my life experience that I bring to my judgment.’ She said, ‘Maybe it means with this background I’m a better listener, I listen for better things. But ultimately, it’s not going to decide any case for me.’”

So Sotomayor made what amounts to yet another claim of racial or ethnic superiority. Will this cause a firestorm in the MSM? Sink her nominiation? Surely you jest.