That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post, which looks at how the presidential candidates in 2008 presented competing visions of the judicial role. Here’s how it opens:

In his presidential campaign in 2008, Barack Obama presented his “empathy” standard for selecting Supreme Court justices and lower-court judges. John McCain, his Republican rival, countered by defending the imperative of judicial dispassion.
Obama would win the 2008 election, but he would lose the broader rhetorical battle over the proper role of judges: His own two Supreme Court nominees would repudiate his empathy standard.