I think Krauthammer’s right in his column today: “Use the upcoming hearings not to deny her the seat, but to illuminate her views. . . . The argument should be elevated, respectful, and entirely about judicial philosophy.” (My own observations about her name had nothing to do with her as such.) Gingrich, Limbaugh, and Tancredo crying “racist” isn’t going to help at all. I know that’s unfair, because any kind of Republican nominee, even a Hispanic woman judge, would already have been crucified based on the comments Judge Sotomayor has made, and any on the Left who deny that are simply lying. But that’s the reality of the battlespace we’re in. Which is why we’re lucky to have Jeff Sessions and not Arlen Specter as our guy leading the charge on the Judiciary Committee: Because of his gentlemanly personality and because he’s been on the receiving end of a Borking himself, Sessions will lead the examination of Sotomayor in just such a respectful fashion, but as a principled conservative and an experienced prosecutor, he’ll grill her til her every pious claim to commitment to equal justice is stripped away.

And anyway, would we really want Sotomayor to be rejected? While she’s obviously not stupid, whatever the gossip, it seems clear she doesn’t have the intellectual heft to go toe-to-toe with Scalia (few people do, of course), nor the political ability to successfully bring Kennedy over to her side, and heck, we might even be surprised about her rulings on abortion. If she were turned down, we might end up with Wood or Kagan, who could well do more to move the Court to the left.

As Wendy Long says over at Bench Memos:

We need to move forward with a confirmation process that focuses on what really matters: Does Judge Sotomayor embrace a view of judging that is constrained by the text, history, and principles of the Constitution and our laws? Or does she favor an interpretive enterprise in which a judge’s personal feelings, views, background, and politics drive the outcome of cases?