One "Yea" Too Many

Senator Lindsey Graham provided the solitary Republican vote for Sonia Sotomayor on the Senate Judiciary Committee. His reasons were laudable but, at their core, misplaced and naive. He urged Democrats to remember his favorable vote when, down the road, a conservative president puts forward a conservative nominee. It was just the kind of useless bipartisan statement that John McCain would have made. The problem is that convicted liberals will never acquiesce in their unrelenting opposition to all conservative judges. They never recall Republican deference to their nominees (Justices Ginsburg and Breyer, for example) as an example to follow. Obama himself continued the precedent as an Illinois senator when he voted to filibuster Alito and, ultimately, voted against both Alito and Roberts.