It’s at the top of the Left’s talking-points that Judge Sotomayor was first put on the bench by a Republican president, George H. W. Bush, in 1991. That’s pretty funny when you think about it — the Bush seal of approval is not usually thought an imprimatur by the Left, and it wouldn’t likely be much comfort to conservatives given that Sotomayor’s district court nomination came around the same time GHWB put Justice Souter on the Supreme Court. But there is even less to it than meets the eye.

The appointment of judges, U.S. attorneys, and other high federal offices filled by presidential appointment has been controlled for eons by the U.S. senators from each state. That is because a nominee must win confirmation by the senate, the rules and customs of which permit a single senator to block consideration of a nominee. For years and years (until Schumer beat D’Amato), the U.S. senate delegation from New York was split — one Republican, one Democrat. In order to keep the peace and, more importantly, to ensure that the senator from the party out of power (i.e., not in the White House) did not use senatorial privileges to block appointments desired by the party in power, there was an arrangement in New York: for every X number of appointments controlled by the party in power, the party out of power (from 1980 through 1992, the Democrats) would get Y number (a smaller number, but at least something, which is better than nothing). I believe in 1991 it was on the order of 2 Democrat appointments for every 5 Republican appointments.

That is how Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by Bush-41. She was a selection of Democratic Sen. Pat Moynihan. The Republicans agreed to her appointment in order to ensure that Moynihan would not block nominees urged by Republican Sen. Al D’Amato.

It is surely true that Judge Sotomayor is a Bush-41 appointee, and I have no doubt that our regrettably race-and-ethnicity-obsessed Republican Party would point to her appointment by Bush as more proof of how indulgent they are of Hispanic sensibilities. But Sotomayor was not a Republican idea; she was a Republican accommodation.