Stuart Taylor, in his not-so-balaced polemic, lays out the crux of the coming debate over Sotomayor. This will be fun to watch.
As for Sotomayor's speech, fragmentary quotations admittedly cannot capture every qualification and nuance. She also stressed that although "men lawyers... need to work on" their "attitudes," many have already reached "great moments of enlightenment." She noted that she tries to be impartial. And she did not overtly suggest that judges should play identity politics.
I place the earlier quotations in more-detailed context here so that readers can assess Sotomayor's meaning for themselves.
"Judge
Cedarbaum ... believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law. Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society. Whatever the reasons... we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning....
"Our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that -- it's an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others....
"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases.... I am... not so sure that I agree with the statement. First... there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."
The full text of the speech, as published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal in 2002, is available on The New York Times website. (It says that the speech was in 2002; I've read elsewhere that it was October 2001.)
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/print_friendly.php?ID=or_20090523_2724
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