Obama: Sotomayor Race Charges Are 'Nonsense'

President Obama said yesterday that while Sonia Sotomayor would probably like to rephrase her controversial 2001 comment about race, it doesn't warrant "all this nonsense that is being spewed out by conservative critics.” In an interview with NBC that will air next week, Obama stressed that Sotomayor’s comment came as part of a longer speech that demonstrates she does not subscribe to "identity politics."

“I’m sure she would have restated it,” Obama said. “But if you look in the entire sweep of the essay that she wrote, what’s clear is that she was simply saying that her life experiences will give her information about the struggles and hardships that people are going through. That will make her a good judge." (More US Supreme Court stories.)