Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) gets into the “wise Latina” comment with Judge Sonia Sotomayor. What follows is an imprecise transcript:

Graham: Do you understand, ma’am, how if I said anything like that, and I justified it as saying I was trying to inspire someone, they would have my head?
Sotomayor: I can understand how it could be hurtful, particularly if read in isolation.
Graham: I don’t know how you can justify — if I said that because of my experience as a Caucasian male I am a better person to represent the people of South Carolina, and my opponent was a minority, it would make national news, and it should. I am not going to judge you based on that one statement . . . I just hope you appreciate the world we live in, and how you can say something like that, meaning to inspire someone, and still have a chance to get on the Supreme Court. Others could not, if they had said anything remotely like that statement. Does that make sense to you?
Sotomayor: It does.
Graham: Some people deserve a second chance if they misspeak . . . If people come to that conclusion based on this hearing, then already some good has come out of this.

I would note that today’s hearings have definitely brought the “wise Latina” comment to great prominence; it’s hard to see how it doesn’t dominate tomorrow’s headlines.

UPDATE: Graham is getting rave reviews on CNN. Jeffrey Toobin: “This was an exquisite cross-examination. This guy really knows what he’s doing.” Alex Castellanos, on CNN: Graham’s questioning was “the most honest, and least political, moment of the hearings.”

He said Sotomayor’s answers were evasive.