Sotomayor need not apologize; she needs to recant

President Obama's pick to the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, is raising a national debate over this comment:

“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.”

I don't think she needs to apologize, as Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday. Nor do I think she needs to explain it, as she reportedly plans to do today when she meets key senators, including our own Sen. Harry Reid.

What she needs to do is recant.

Had she just said the she hoped the color of her skin, or the depth of her Latina cultural bias, make her a better judge, there'd be little wrong. But she says -- flat out says! -- that she hopes her skin color and cultural bias make her a better judge than A WHITE MALE. If she sticks to that, then her nomination ought to be in serious question.

So my advice, as an old white guy with no better (or worse) judgment than anyone else with different plumbing or darker skin pigmentation, is to just recant. Call it a cultural bias to soft-headed, no longer relevant liberalism and Democratic politics of the 1960s and, as they say on the left, move on.

If she is a wise Latina woman, she'll do that.

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor meets with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev. on Capitol Hill in Washington today. AP Photo/Susan Walsh