Sotomayor

I probably will not agree with most of Sonia Sotomayor's decisions on the Supreme Court but she should be confirmed. She is well qualified and one of the perks of being president is being able to appoint someone who matches your views. Senate Republicans are welcome to grill her but they should not make a cause out of it. That's how the process is supposed to work.

That said, the Democrats including President Obama have violated this principle for decades. The NOW and the related abortion lobby are principally to blame. They have made abortion a litmus test and assume that anyone nominated by a Republican will fail it. This is a perversion of the process. Republicans have had to resort to "stealth nominees" - people whose judicial history is too short to draw conclusions from.

The Roe v Wade decision was possibly the worst since the days of slavery. It invented a constitutional right where none is clearly written. The gyrations every since have been devoted to protecting or overthrowing that single decision.

The Supreme Court is too important to be hostage to a single issue.