WASHINGTON — President Obama expressed confidence yesterday that efforts to scuttle Sonia Sotomayor's nomination to the Supreme Court will fail despite intensified scrutiny of her judicial career. He said senators should work quickly to elevate the federal appeals judge.

"I am certain that she is the right choice," the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address in which he scolded critics who he said were trying to distort her record and past statements. Those include her 2001 comment that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge.

With the Senate returning this coming week from its holiday break, Obama said he hopes it begins the confirmation process without delay. He said he expects his nominee to be on the bench in October.

In the interim, Obama said he expects "rigorous evaluation" of his nominee but added: "What I hope is that we can avoid the political posturing and ideological brinksmanship that has bogged down this process, and Congress, in the past."

He derided "some in Washington who are attempting to draw old battle lines and playing the usual political games, pulling a few comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of Judge Sotomayor's record."

On Friday, Obama personally sought to deflect criticism about Sotomayor's comment in a 2001 lecture that said, "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."

The quote from Sotomayor has emerged as a rallying call for conservative critics who fear she will offer opinions from the bench based on her life experience, ethnicity and gender.