Sotomayor will soon have her first chance to explain her comment that a "wise Latina" can often reach a better conclusion than a white man.

From The Wall Street Journal:

When Judge Sonia Sotomayor faces the Senate Judiciary Committee next week, she will finally get to explain before the cameras her comment that a "wise Latina" can often reach a better conclusion than a white man. That response could help determine whether her confirmation is smooth or rocky.

Despite the furor surrounding the remark -- which she made at a law school in 2001, among other occasions -- Judge Sotomayor hasn't been able to address it publicly since her nomination, because nominees typically don't speak out before their hearings.

However, she did discuss it privately when she made the rounds of senators following her nomination. Based on those discussions, she is likely to say that her judicial record shows no hint of the bias or activism that critics see in the remark. She also is expected to defend the importance of diversity on the bench, while perhaps offering a nod to critics by calling her choice of words imperfect.

"I asked her that question...and she was very direct," said Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.). "She just said, '[Latina identity] is something that informs my experience, but I'm always going to look to judicial precedent, I'm always going to follow the rule of law.'"

Manuel Miranda, a former aide to Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee who is working against Judge Sotomayor's confirmation, said that "the whole race-bias issue" suggested by the remark will probably be the liveliest part of the hearing. "I think that's explosive, I think that's worthwhile, I think that's entertaining," Mr. Miranda said. "Then it becomes pretty boring."

Judge Sotomayor made the now-famous comment in a speech at the University of California, Berkeley, in which she noted that even great judges like Oliver Wendell Holmes had voted to uphold racial and sex discrimination.

"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," she said.

The White House initially argued that, as spokesman Robert Gibbs put it, "She'd say her word choice in 2001 was poor." But it soon emerged that Judge Sotomayor had used similar language on several other occasions.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.), a strong supporter of Judge Sotomayor, said she pointed out to him that several sentences later in the same speech, she observed that many white men had issued great opinions, including Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 case outlawing segregation in public schools.

Mr. Schumer made the argument that is likely to be Judge Sotomayor's chief response -- that her 17-year judicial record, including hundreds of rulings, shows no evidence of unfairness or tilting the scales in favor of minority groups, whatever she may have said in speeches.

"Paraphrasing Joe Friday, 'Just look at the record, folks,'" Mr. Schumer said.

But many Republicans consider the comment biased on its face. Judge Sotomayor has told Republican senators her wording was "inadvertent" and "inartful," but they will press her hard at the hearing for a persuasive disavowal.

"I do think that based on her speeches and writings, that it will be essential that she convincingly assert that she will be impartial," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), the Judiciary Committee's top Republican.

Democrats are certain to argue, if Judge Sotomayor doesn't, that conservative Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito cited their Italian-American backgrounds during their own confirmation hearings, to suggest their sensitivity to discrimination and sympathy for immigrants.

"Just based on her record, she is clearly not, as her opponents are saying, an activist," Ms. Gillibrand said. "She is someone who follows precedent, follows the rule of law and is very judicial in temperament."