Parsing The Words

The AP spins:

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sought Tuesday to hit back against GOP charges that she would let her background dictate her rulings, telling senators in both parties that she would follow the law as a justice.

In private meetings that marked her Capitol Hill debut, Sotomayor, who would be the high court's first Hispanic and its third woman, explained her views of a judge's role and the impact of her life experiences to leaders of the Judiciary Committee, which will have the first crack at weighing her confirmation.

"Ultimately and completely, a judge has to follow the law no matter what their upbringing has been," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the panel chairman, quoted President Barack Obama's nominee as saying in their closed-door session on Capitol Hill.

Leahy had asked Sotomayor, 54, what she meant when she said in 2001 that she hoped her decisions as a "wise Latina" would be better than those of a white male who hadn't had the same experiences. Prominent Republicans have cited the 2001 remark to call her a racist.

Barack Obama insists that Sotomayor misspoke when she read her speech about inferior white men to La Raza members.

If we’ve learned anything in the last 120 days of Mr. Obama’s reign, it is to parse his words. So . . .

What does it mean to 'misspeak'?

"mis-speak (ms-spk)

v. mis-spoke (-spk), mis-spo-ken (-spkn), mis-speak-ing, mis-speaks

v.tr.
To speak or pronounce incorrectly: The lead actor misspoke his lines.

v.intr.
To speak mistakenly, inappropriately, or rashly."

So does this excuse Sotomayor from what she said? Of course not! What nonsense!

Does it mean that she wasn't speaking the truth or she shouldn't have said something that she believed was true but would show her to be a racist?

Absolutely. Is she repentent? No! She simply needs to do the Texas Two-Step while she is being interviewed by our highly intelligent representatives who have only the best interest of their constituents at heart.

I may not be able to fix stupid, but I don't have to reelect it!