He doesn’t just screw up a few words. Leahy removed the entire controversial aspect of the “wisa Latina” quote, giving the impression that she was just saying that her experiences led her to wise decisions — not better decisisons than those made by white men. Look at it this way: It was hackish enough for the Associated Press to call him on it:

WASHINGTON (AP) – In endorsing Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy did some creative rewriting of history. And he put quote marks around it…

LEAHY SAID: “You said that, quote, you ‘would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would reach wise decisions.’”

THE FACTS: If that’s all Sotomayor said, the quote would barely have mattered to opponents of her nomination. The actual quote, delivered in a 2001 speech to law students at the University of California at Berkeley, was: “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.”

Leahy’s revision dropped the controversial part of the phrase, the part that has attracted charges of reverse racism.

The other aspect the AP fact-checked from yesterday’s hearing were the quotes brought up by Jeff Sessions (R-Al) in which Sotomayor said it was the job of judges to make policy, showing that she believes in judicial activism. She denies that she believes as much, but the wire service says Sessions quoted her correctly. Unsurprisingly, she’s lying in order to get confirmed without issue.