Sotomayor used "poor" word choice: White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House sought on Friday to quell a controversy over U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's 2001 comment indicating Hispanic women may decide cases better than white men, saying she used a poor choice of words.

In an NBC interview, President Barack Obama said he was sure Sotomayor "would have restated" her comment.

"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," Obama said.

If confirmed by the Senate, Sotomayor would become the first Hispanic and third woman U.S. Supreme Court justice.

"I think she'd say that her word choice in 2001 was poor," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

Sotomayor said in 2001 remarks at the University of California, Berkeley, that she disagreed with former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's view that a wise old man and a wise old woman would reach the same conclusion on a case.

In a comment branded as racist by some conservatives, Sotomayor said she would hope 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."

Gibbs said the comment by Sotomayor, who is a federal appeals court judge, had been taken out of context by critics such as radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich.

HUMBLE BACKGROUND

The White House has sought to play up Sotomayor's humble background as the daughter of Puerto Rican parents who grew up in a Bronx public housing project in New York City.

Obama has talked of the importance of selecting a nominee with "empathy" for the lifetime appointment to the U.S. high court, whose docket includes cases on hot-button social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage as well as a range of business cases.

If confirmed, Sotomayor would replace retiring Justice David Souter. The pick of Sotomayor, a liberal, is unlikely to shift the court's ideological balance. Souter is part of the court's liberal wing.

Despite the conservative criticism, political analysts expect that barring an unexpected development, Sotomayor will be confirmed by the Senate, where Obama's fellow Democrats hold a solid majority.

Kicking off a confirmation process likely to take months, Sotomayor will pay visits on Tuesday to key senators including Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat; Patrick Leahy, Democratic chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee; and Jeff Sessions, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee.

Gibbs said the White House was also hopeful about arranging a meeting with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.

Also next week, the White House is set to send up to Capitol Hill some sets of documents such as past writings and financial information on Sotomayor that will be reviewed in the confirmation process.

(Additional reporting by Richard Cowan)