First, you’re assuming the analysis itself has no bias. That’s clearly wrong. Scroll down just a little in alchemist’s link and you find a previous post by this same Tom Goldstein. Here’s what he says BEFORE doing his analysis:

In the rush the find Sotomayor’s “biases,” media personalities and conservative opponents latched onto her Berkeley speech.. (note the scare quotes – GWR)

It seems to me that these numbers decisively disprove the claim that she decides cases with any sort of racial bias.

Shorter Goldstein: This is what I believe, and now I’m going to look for evidence to support it.

This is like having Ted Kennedy examine evidence about whether Barack Obama is a spendthrift, and then concluding “Of course not”. You’d certainly believe that, right???

Second, the analysis is loaded with false comparisons based on how “republican” judges voted. Golstein and alchemist apparently forgot that David Souter is a “republican”. This is a meaningless comparison meant to prove Sotomayor is mainstream.

Third, it relies on cherry-picked cases – those that Goldstein classifies as “discrimination” cases. How did she rule on other cases? Does it give any indication how she rules on “non-discrimination” cases involving a minority on one side and a Caucasian on another? No…that’s conveniently left out.

Fourth, the analysis ignores her high rate of reversals, as Lorica noted.

If this situation were reversed – picture a white male nominee saying his race and gender mean he can render a superior judgment to a Latina woman – alchemist would be off on one of his rants about shredding the Constitution.

In point of fact, saying your “life experience” makes you more qualified to judge a case will disqualify you as a juror. The irony is that Sotomayor’s comments mean she could not serve on the jury of one of those cases based on her prejudice. So maybe alchemist can explain why, if she couldn’t be on the jury in one of those cases, why she should be allowed to judge those cases.

Twittering suspended? Passionate bird watcher and listener Tiny is uncomprehending at the thought. Checking in on our twitter account this afta, we were horrified to learn that we’ve been blackballed on accounta “strange activity”: Account Suspended…

Well…in addition to not considering her racist diatribe it appears that we now have two cases that we should not examine. Pretty soon all of Sotomayor’s record will be off-limits.

Indeed. We can begin with Ricci v. DeStefano, where Sotomayor ruled against the plaintiff because he was a white male. Or will the argument be that we cannot examine “a single case”?

Or how about her “compelling personal history”? Even AP admits that she spent most of her childhood in a middle-class neighborhood and not a poor Bronx one, as Obama and other supporters falsely claim. Sotomayor went to an excellent private Catholic high school out of the reach of most families. At Princeton and then Yale, she agitated for even more racial special privileges.

Let’s let AP (not exactly a conservative Republican propaganda organ) pick up the “compelling story”:

[Sotomayor] climbed her way up through New York’s Democratic power structure boosted by its ultimate brokers over those years — Gov. Mario Cuomo, Mayor Ed Koch, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan and District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. That’s the access of a partner in a corporate law firm, not a kid from the South Bronx.

She now earns more than $200,000 a year and owns a condominium in Greenwich Village, a neighborhood of million-dollar-plus homes. Her brother, Dr. Juan Sotomayor, is a physician in North Syracuse, N.Y., whose practice doesn’t accept Medicaid or Medicare — programs for the poor and elderly — according to its Web site.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gybh1tAJNK3I6fP1gJUsFOhJe5AAD98G55BO0

In other words, she is yet another snooty out-of-touch rich liberal snob who used her ethnicity and high-powered connections to climb the ladder of success. Washington is hip-deep in them.

Perhaps you had better stick with the “single sentence in a single speech” angle, since Sotomayor’s “compelling personal history” is not compelling at all, and her judicial record tends to back up her racist views. But take heart! Racism is quite chic in the Democrat Party these days. Even David Duke has seen the light and sounds like an anti-war liberal Democrat.

But Republicans can use the process as a teaching moment, not to tear down Ms. Sotomayor on personal issues the way the left tried with Justices Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito, but to educate Americans about the proper role of the judiciary and to explore whether Judge Sotomayor’s Constitutional principles are as free-form as they seem from her record.

From the Wall Street Journal

Hmmm.

Let’s see how far reporters go with this.

Yeah, she’s a shoe-in because she’s a typical lib.

And why are the elephants worried about losing the “latino” vote? Seems to me the champion of giving our country away, one J. McCain, didn’t get a whole bunch of their votes, so what makes them think playing nicey-nice with the mental midget will improve their chances of getting even one more such vote in 2010 or 2012?