HispanicBusiness

Colin Powell defended Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Sunday, dismissing criticism that she is a "reverse racist" as "nonsense."

Speaking with John King on CNN's State of Union, Powell also acknowledged that she "has an open and liberal bent of mind," but said that that is "not disqualifying."

Powell, who said he's never met Sotomayor even though they hail from the same South Bronx neighborhood, broached the topic of how the U.S. Supreme Court last week reversed a Sotomayor ruling on an affirmative action case -- and also expounded on his own thoughts about affirmative action.

The Supreme Court last week ruled in favor of a group of 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic in New Haven who say they were passed up for a promotion even though they achieved the highest marks on an exam. The city withheld their promotion on the grounds that the test left none of the department's black firefighters in line for a promotion.

Serving on a three-member panel for the Second Court of Appeals, Sotomayor upheld the city's decision, but that decision was overturned on June 29 by the Supreme Court.

"What we can't continue to have is to have somebody like a Judge Sotomayor, who is announced, and based on one simple, tricky ... case that the Supreme Court has now decided, have her called a racist or a reverse racist, and she ought to withdraw her nomination because we're mad at her," Powell said.

"Fortunately, the senators who will sit on this hearing in the judiciary committee after a few days of this kind of nonsense said 'Let's slow down. Let's examine her qualifications in the way we're supposed to at a confirmation hearing.'"

During the interview, King brought up a passage in Powell's 1995 book "My American Journey," in which Powell wrote the following passage about Republicans and their attitude towards race.

"Never in the two years I worked with Ronald Reagan and George Bush did I detect the slightest trace of racial prejudice in their behavior. They led a party, however whose principle message to black Americans seemed to be: Lift yourself up by your bootstraps; some did not have boots. I wish that Reagan and Bush had shown more sensitivity on this point."

Powell said he believes the Republican party still has a ways to go on this measure, and went on to say that he supports some forms of affirmative action.

"You don't have an obligation to bring in anybody who's not able to do the work.," he said. "You should always have qualifications. But once you establish those qualifications, is there something wrong with a taxpayer-funded institution not making sure that it is representing the entire public?"

About his own life, he said:

"I have a hunch that maybe 55 years ago somebody took a look at my rather mediocre high school grades and at the same time thought, 'Maybe this kid can make it.' And they let me into the City College of New York."