Firestorm over firefighters

While many Republican leaders have been publicly cautious with their opinions about President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has been crystal clear about his opposition.

“Do I want her to fail to get on the court? Yes,” Limbaugh said on his show on May 26, 2009. “She’d be a disaster on the court.”

In making his case, Limbaugh cited a Sotomayor ruling that has drawn scrutiny from critics this week.

“She ruled against the white firefighter — Ricci and other white firefighters — just on the basis that she thought women and minorities should be given a preference because of their skin color and because of the history of discrimination in the past,” Limbaugh said. “The law was totally disregarded.”

We found there’s a lot more to the story. We rated his statement

Barely True

.

In case you missed it, here’s our previous coverage coverage of the Sotomayor nomination.

• The Libertarian National Committee said that ”

Sotomayor

has had her rulings thrown out by the court a troubling four times.” We found that this statement depends on a few variables. We rated their statement

Half True

.

• We looked at a statement from the Judicial Confirmation Network that Sotomayor thinks “that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.” We rated it

Half True

.

• We examined a claim by the Republican National Committee that Sotomayor believes the appellate court “makes policy.” We found that claim to be

Half True

.

• We also looked at President Obama’s claim that she has more experience than the sitting justices when they were nominated. We found that she had roughly the same experience as the other justices. So we gave it a

Half True

.