Jon Margolis, former chief political reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the author of "The Last Innocent Year: America in 1964," lives in northeastern Vermont, where he writes and teaches.

Such a tizzy over 32 words.

Twice as many, if perhaps not yet as famous and controversial as George W. Bush’s 16 inaccurate words about African yellowcake, but getting there, thanks in part to the determination—or should that be obsession?—of reporters and editors.

The words, of course, were from President Barack Obama’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee,  Sonia Sotomayor: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion that a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

Well, you’da thunk she shouted at the Queen, insulted the Pope, or used foul language in church.

“Racist,” claimed much of the conservative commentariate, who continued to probe the not-so-eternal questions of why life is so difficult for white affluent males, and why they were deprived of the advantages of growing up poor, Puerto Rican, and Type 1 diabetic to boot.

The most celebrated of these observers, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, first proclaimed in a Tweet (Yup, this is how proclaiming is done these days; get used to it):”Imagine a judicial nominee said "my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman" new racism is no better than old racism.”

Then, writing for Human Events, he sort of repented, saying, “The word “racist” should not have been applied to Judge Sotomayor as a person, even if her words themselves are unacceptable.” He did not repent of saying (or at least strongly suggesting) that Sotomayor had said her experience as a Latina woman “makes me better” than a white male, which she did not say. But nobody’s perfect.

Digression: In the course of this flap, several observers have wondered why Gingrich, who holds no office, gets so much ink and air time, or even gets taken seriously. Because he might run for president next time, is the semi-official answer. The better answer is: He’s fun. Outrageous, arguably extreme, sometimes bizarre. But not dull. That’s why reporters like him. End of digression.

Now, two weeks since Obama nominated Sotomayor to replace retiring Justice David Souter, the clamor shows no signs of abating. Every one of those words has been examined and interpreted by advocates and opponents no less inclined to nit-pick than Talmudic scholars, philosophy graduate students, or heavy drinkers at the corner saloon.

All of which has been embraced and devoured by journalism's biggest names and most prestigious orginizations, who seem so immersed in the story that they don't know when they're making fools of themselves. Thus Monday's New York Times ran a story headlined, "Sotomayor Is Recalled as a Driven Rookie Prosecutor." To distinguish her, no doubt from all the many New York City rookie prosecutors with no ambition to speak of.

Then there were several stories about how Sotomayor isn’t rich enough, including one in the Times on June 6, by Jo Becker, which seemed perplexed that Sotomayor “reported a net worth of just $740,000 this week, with no stocks or bonds and a savings account of $31,985, just marginally more than she owes her dentist and credit card companies.”
Yeah, and a pension guaranteeing her close to 200 grand a year for the rest of her life when she retires. Most Americans would call that pretty rich.
OK, the whole Sotomayer nomination flap is a good story. Major news organizations should be all over it . The problem seems to be finding the dividing line between being all over it and hyping it.
No, not hyping the basic story. Any new Supreme Court nominee is a big story. A new president’s first nomination makes it bigger. A second woman on this court, and only the third ever? Bigger yet. And the first Hispanic nominee renders the story enormous, especially in New York, where Sotomayor grew up, worked as a prosecutor and private attorney, and serves on the Federal Appeals Court. All that is hard to hype.
What seems to be getting hyped—even by the elite media, yes, even (especially?) by the New York Times—is the trouble-making potential, as though reporters and editors are not simply hoping for conflict at Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, but promoting it.
Just consider how often the first four words are cut off the quote. Without the “I would hope that,” the sentence is notably more assertive, more like fightin’ words. Just the way to quote it if you’re trying to get a fight going.
But a fight about what? To read the whole speech is to conclude merely that Sotomayor was agreeing with Ulysses (as channeled by Lord Tennyson) that “I am a part of all that I have met,” that like everyone else, she is a product of her past and her experience, including 17 years of experience as a judge.
None of which prevented conservative activists from using that one sentence, out of context, to put the “issue of ‘identity politics’ back to the forefront,” as a May 31 New York Times headline informed.
In and of itself, the story by Times was accurate and informative. But six days later, the Times returned to the racial identification issue, this time in a Page One story by Adam Liptak, not about Sotomayor’s speech as such, but about an affirmative action case on which she ruled.
It’s an important case, on its way to the Supreme Court, and Liptak, who covers that Court for the Times, knows more about this subject and has better sources than most of us, certainly including me.
But it was hard to read the story without wondering whether here, too, the Times was accentuating the confrontational aspects of Sotomayor’s decision, de-emphasizing the extent to which it might have been routine. His key contention, attributed to “many legal scholars,” was that while the decision she reached may have been “perfectly defensible…the procedure…is another matter.”
No criticism here of the anonymous sources. Liptak presumably has them, and should be trusted to use them properly.
But to put this story in the proper context, a reporter might note that:
       --The City of New Haven decided not to promote any firefighters after a test in which no African-Americans (and only one Hispanic) passed because the city thought it might get sued by minority applicants, who would have a good case according to the clear meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964;
       --When sued by white firefighters who had done well in the test, the city’s case was upheld by the District Judge, who wrote a 47-page opinion, presumably explaining why he ruled as he did, an explanation almost nowhere to be found in the coverage;
       --That decision was unanimously upheld by a three-judge panel of the Appeals Court, of which Sotomayor was only one. So they just issued a one-paragraph statement affirming the District Court, which seems not to be unusual in the Second Circuit. What’s the big deal?
And shouldn’t somebody note that what the three-judge panel did was the antithesis of  that much-reviled “judicial activism?” The Appellate  judges decided not to reverse the lower court judge or to overturn…well, basically, the law, as written as and as heretofore interpreted by the courts. The Supreme Court may well do that any day now, which is its prerogative. If so, that will be judicial activism.
There is one more story about Sotomayor, though not about ethnic identity or affirmative action, that makes one wonder whether the Times (and not only the Times)  is seeking to make much out of little.
In a Page One story on May 28, reporter Charlie Savage cited “abortion rights advocates” who are “expressing unease that Judge Sotomayor may not be a reliable vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision.”
Savage is a superb reporter who richly deserved his 2007 Pulitzer Prize  (when he was with the Boston Globe) for his reporting about George Bush’s signing statements. But somebody at the Times that day had an attack of political naiveté. Because the refutation of the story was right in that day’s paper, on the page to which Savage’s story jumped.
There, illustrating the accompanying story about how the White House chose its nominee, were pictures of the folks who did it: Rahm Emanuel, Gregory B. Craig, David Axelrod, Vice President Joe Biden, and Biden’s chief of staff Ronald A. Klain.
Five of the most politically sophisticated guys in the Universe. The chances of any one of them, not to mention all five, forwarding to the President a Supreme Court nominee who did not favor abortion right are…well, they aren’t. There are ways a reporter can get that truth across even if they won’t tell him (which they won’t, being among the five most politically sophisticated guys in….) that they made sure of her stand on Roe v. Wade.
Maybe nobody thought of that. Maybe nobody thought of it because they were trying to create controversy.
Which is not exactly the same thing as covering the news.
 

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