Sotomayor is obviously in the midst of a confirmation conversion, as she will jettison her racial essentialism and embrace traditional notions of fairness and impartiality. The conversion won’t be convincing, since she clearly said what she meant in the Latina Lecture. But, politically, I fear that the “wise Latina” line is going to be tired by the time of her hearing. Surely she is going to tell senators this week that she misspoke and it’s going to leaked, so everyone can say it’s old news and that the statement doesn’t really represent her views. I think the chief danger to her is the possibility that she said similar things elsewhere and a transcript or recording exists. Through his “she misspoke” defense, Obama has implicitly conceded that what she said in the Latina Lecture was out of bounds. If it can be established that she said it elsewhere it will demonstrate the dishonesty of the misspoke defense and the out-of-the-mainstream nature of her views.