23 seconds ago 2009-11-10T04:01:03-08:00
Sonia Sotomayor's story has captured imaginations in Europe, where fairly rigid class systems mean most people aren't as upwardly mobile as Americans can be.
Europeans have been making much of her rise from the rough streets of the Bronx to the highest bench in the land. They may not always admit it, but they've long had a certain grudging admiration for people like Jimmy Carter, whose uniquely American journey from peanut farmer to president isn't the kind of story you'll come across very often in the Old World.
Austria's Die Presse newspaper gushed Wednesday over "her ascent from humble Hispanic circumstances to one of the most exclusive and most influential offices in the USA."
Another Vienna daily, Der Standard, also expressed wonderment at Sotomayor's pursuit of the American dream.
"Thanks to her iron will power, she escaped a dreary, subsidized low- rent housing block in the Bronx and went on to succeed," commentator Frank Herrmann wrote.
-William J. Kole, AP bureau chief, Vienna
