Opinion: Sotomayor hearings: Forget the record, how do you really feel?

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We’ve reached a point, here on Day 4 of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings, where some Republicans have acknowledged that when they sift through the federal judge’s 17-year record on the district and appeals courts, they don’t see much to quibble about.

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) said as much this morning. Cornyn said Sotomayor’s record falls “in the mainstream.” Most independent analyses have reached a similar conclusion.

It’s the argument that the White House has been trying to make for weeks. (Of course it was also the point Republicans made about Samuel A. Alito Jr. in 2006.)

But as Democrats worried with Alito, Graham and Cornyn said they fear that Sotomayor is expertly masking her true self. “What is creating this cognitive dissonance is that you appear to be a different person in your speeches in some of the comments that you’ve made,” Cornyn said.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said as much in an interview with the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday, saying what bothered him was that Sotomayor, in his mind, was attempting to reinterpret her past words to give them a meaning suitable for Republicans.

He wondered why she wouldn’t simply acknowledge that she meant what she said at the time -- that, for example, she believed that Latina judges would reach better conclusions than white males. (Of course he already knows the answer.) Similarly, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) has puzzled over why Sotomayor won’t just acknowledge that she was an advocate for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

That would go against the confirmation paradigm: Stick to the script, avoid hot-button issues and admit as little to the opposing side as possible. It doesn’t make for absorbing television, but it seems to be working.

-- James Oliphant

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