Just to add to Jamison's point about Jeffrey Rosen's star turn on the back of now infamous hatchet job on Judge Sonia Sotomayor for TNR, and how Rosen continues to land assignments from fancy, 'important' magazines. (He's got buzz!).

The fact is Rosen, now writing for Time, still can't write honestly about Sotomayor. In fact, Rosen can't even perform Journalism 101.

This is utterly predictable, but behold nonetheless [emphasis added]:

Republican critics of Sotomayor are planning to use the Ricci decision as Exhibit A in what they hope will be confirmation hearings focused on her views about race. Exhibit B is a speech she delivered in 2001 that included the following 32 words: “I would hope that 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.” ...Sotomayor expressed regret about her word choice to Senator Dianne Feinstein. But after the Senate Judiciary Committee released Sotomayor's complete list of speeches, it emerged that she had delivered many versions of the same stump speech — seven by one count — between 1994 and 2003. In all of them, she suggested that a judge who was a “wise woman” or a “wise Latina woman” would issue a better opinion than a male or a white male judge.

Sotomayor's defenders say that those words were taken out of context and that her appellate opinions are hardly radical on race.

Rosen claims that in every instance, Sotomayor was making the sweeping claim that a “wise Latina woman” would make better decisions from the bench than white men. But oh yeah, her supporters say the quote was taken out of context.

That's it. Rosen never explains what the actual context was. (i.e. The “Latina woman” reference was made specifically in terms of discrimination cases.) Instead, Rosen adopts the GOP spin about the quotes and pretends Sotomayor was announcing the unequivocal superiority of Latina women.

But Rosen's safe, because inside the Beltway that's how the “Latina woman” story must be covered. Can a Vanity Fair feature assignment on Sotomayor be far off?