Goldfarb keeps digging

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb hits back at critics, two weeks later:

This blog stated that Sotomayor, because of her ethnic background, had been the beneficiary of preferential treatment from both Princeton and Yale. Such a statement would seem beyond dispute -- affirmative action policies were in place at both schools and designed specifically to provide someone with Sotomayor's background an easier path to admission. Yet the left was outraged that anyone would suggest Sotomayor had benefited from affirmative action.

That isn't what happened. Not even close. I know, because I wrote the post Goldfarb linked to with the words “was outraged.”

Here's what actually happened:

Michael Goldfarb wrote that Sonia Sotomayor benefited from “preferential treatment” because a law firm that asked her wildly inappropriate questions while she was a student at Yale Law later apologized for those wildly inappropriate questions. That is transparently absurd, as I pointed out in the post to which Goldfarb refers.

Two days later, Goldfarb made even more of a fool of himself, snidely claiming that Sotomayor was allowed to teach her own class and grade her own work, and suggesting that this may have explained her ability to graduate from Princeton with honors. None of that ever happened, as even a cursory glance at the press release his claims were based on makes clear. So I pointed out that Goldfarb either didn't or couldn't read the press release.

Several others joined in, pointing and laughing at Goldfarb's foolishness. Still, he refused to correct his glaring error. Instead, he eventually added an update, quoting a National Review writer, that continued to suggest that Sotomayor essentially graded herself. (Note that Goldfarb didn't link to my posts about the press releases as an example of the “outrage” on the left -- probably because he recognizes how bad he looks as a result of the press release fiasco.)

To this day, Goldfarb hasn't really corrected his mistake. And, lest there be any doubt, he did make a (rather obvious) mistake. I contacted Princeton University at the time, and the school's Director of Media Relations confirmed that Goldfarb “misunderstood the press release.”

So, it wasn't that “the left” was “outraged” that anyone would suggest Sotomayor benefited from affirmative action. It was that Goldfarb made painfully dumb and transparently false claims, which many people pointed out, and which he still hasn't corrected.

But I can see how Goldfarb is confused. After all, if he can't read a simple press release, how can he be expected to read and comprehend the two blog posts he links to?