The Times solicits comments from five conservatives or Republicans--Rachel Brand, Fred McClure, James R. Copland, Manuel Miranda and Kenneth M. Duberstein. The Times also quoted one law professor with a liberal reputation who has been a forceful critic of Sotomayor (suggesting she was intellectually unqualified for the court), and Nan Aron "of the liberal Alliance for Justice."

The piece goes on to say, "Several legal experts said Judge Sotomayor’s testimony might make it harder for Mr. Obama to name a more liberal justice next time." Well, if you talk to that many right-wingers, you will hear that kind of thing quite a bit.

Number of such stories that recalled that Sessions was rejected as a judicial nominee in 1986 in part because of his approving remarks about the Ku Klux Klan: 2

There are two sides to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor: a Latina from a blue-collar family and a wealthy member of America's power elite.

The White House portrays Sotomayor as a living image of the American dream, though its telling of the rags-to-riches story emphasizes the rags, a more politically appealing narrative, and plays down the riches.

Yes, somehow the White House picked her despite the fact that she is no longer poor--and still pretended that she was the "living image of the American dream," which as we all know is to remain poor one's entire life.

That's not the end of it.  The AP also writes:

On ethnicity, Sotomayor herself has recognized--and contributed to--the dichotomy. She proudly highlights her Puerto Rican roots but hasn't always liked it when others have.

The evidence:

Yet years ago, during a recruiting dinner in law school at Yale, Sotomayor objected when a law firm partner asked whether she would have been admitted to the school if she weren't Puerto Rican, and whether law firms did a disservice by hiring minority students the firms know are unqualified and will ultimately be fired.

So she's proud of being Puerto Rican and she takes offense at the notion that she couldn't have gotten into Yale if she weren't? What a "dichotomy." The AP goes on to note that Sotomayor "won a formal apology from the firm."

We do learn, as well, that her brother is a doctor "whose practice doesn't accept Medicaid or Medicare-- programs for the poor and elderly--according to its website." Great--now her sibling isn't poor anymore, either?

The bulk of the story describes various cases that the group took on while Sotomayor was involved with it, which is interesting enough.  But making a case for the importance of the story (justifying its inclusion on Page 1?), writers Raymond Hernandez and David W. Chen write:

Ms. Sotomayor's involvement with the defense fund has so far received scant attention. But her critics, including some Republican senators who will vote on her nomination, have questioned whether she has let her ethnicity, life experiences and public advocacy creep into her decisions as a judge. It seems inevitable, then, that her tenure with the defense fund will be scrutinized during her confirmation hearings.

Now, if you take a look at Sotomayor's actual judicial record, one thing that leaps out is that she frequently comes down in rulings against the side that she would presumably sympathize with politically--for the "global gag rule", a racist cop and tobacco companies, for instance, and against a disabled black woman and African-American air travellers.  Either Sotomayor does have the ability to put aside her personal opinions when making a judgment, in other words, or she's a good deal more right-wing than most people believe.

But the lengthy article never allows anyone to make the case that Sotomayor does not, in fact, "let her ethnicity...creep into her decisions as a judge." Instead, after describing her involvement with the PRLDEF, Hernandez and Chen describe a single judicial case that Sotomayor ruled on--Ricci, in which she was one of three appeals court judges that upheld a ruling against a white firefighter's discrimination claim--and then concludes by quoting a right-wing judicial activist:

Mr. Levey said that the employment discrimination case filed by the defense fund on behalf of Hispanic police officers raised questions about Judge Sotomayor’s credibility in the New Haven case. "It adds to the conviction that this was not accidental, and that she had a very specific agenda here."

In short, the New York Times frames its look at Sotomayor's involvement in Puerto Rican legal affairs as a question of whether such involvement will make her a bad judge, and it allows no one to offer the case to the contrary.  Is that accidental--or does the Times have a very specific agenda here?