That was then, this is now

Among the morning’s opening remarks by various senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee at the start of Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, Sen. Hatch made some particularly keen ones.

He quoted Barack Obama when, as senator, he sat on one of these confirmation hearings for a minority woman judge and expressed very different viewpoints. I thought a transcript of that would be available quickly afteward, but his remarks are hard to find, except in this snip:

Said Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.: “From what she has said, she appears to believe that her role is not constrained to objectively decide who wins based on the weight of the law but who, in her opinion, should win.”

“The factors that will influence her decisions apparently include her gender and Latina heritage and foreign legal concepts that get her creative juices going.” he added.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, broadened that line of skepticism to include Obama. He noted that as a senator, the president opposed Janice Rogers Brown, an African-American appointee to the appeals court by President George W. Bush.

“He argued that the test of a qualified judicial nominee is whether she can set aside her personal views” and decide cases on their merits, Hatch said.

He also said Obama noted at the time that while a nominee’s gender, race and life story “are important, they cannot distract from the focus on the kind of judge she will be.”

Hatch added, “But today, President Obama says that personal empathy is an essential ingredient in judicial decisions.”

In politics, timing is everything. Hatch’s remarks are a timely reminder of politics and the Court.