Sails through

Sonia Sotomayor easily won confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, as the Senate voted 68-31 to elevate her from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is doubtful she will prove a solid vote for upholding constitutional principles. Instead, bet on her to work to protect the interests of those who promote big government at the expense of the Bill of Rights.

But elections have consequences and the president has the right to fill vacancies on the court as long as the Senate approves.

It might be instructive, however, to contrast the treatment Ms. Sotomayor received from Senate Republicans with how Senate Democrats treated some high-profile Bush administration nominees.

Ms. Sotomayor was confirmed in less than three months. There were no threats of a filibuster, no attempts to paint her as some sort of devil incarnate. Yes, she faced some questions concerning her bizarre comments about a Latina woman being a better judge than a white male, but the criticism was mild at worst.

Let's rewind to 2005 when Mr. Bush nominated Samuel Alito to the high court. Liberal Democrats wasted little time before they began trashing the man himself, arguing that his rulings on the appeals court bench were hostile to racial minorities and that he was somehow against the principle of "one-man, one-vote." They even attempted a filibuster to block a confirmation vote.

A few years before that, Democrats successfully killed the nomination of Miguel Estrada to the federal appeals court, with some claiming he was not sufficiently "Hispanic" because he wasn't a leftist ideologue. Solely because Mr. Estrada was a conservative, Democrats dragged him through the mud and refused to allow a Senate vote on his confirmation. The man eventually withdrew his name in frustration.

Then there's John Bolton, Mr. Bush's selection as U.N. ambassador. Mr. Bolton had criticized the United Nations as an ineffective bureaucracy, which was too much for internationalist Democrats to take. They pilloried the diplomat as a "bully" and filibustered his nomination because he opposed nuzzling up with North Korea and Iran. When the president gave him a recess appointment, Democrats went nuts and succeeded a second time in preventing a vote to make his status permanent.

Clarence Thomas? Robert Bork?

In the debate over Ms. Sotomayor, "The Republicans said that they might disagree with some of her rulings, statements or views, but that she was well-qualified to serve on the nation's highest court."

And that involves a level of decorum rarely practiced in the previous eight years by those on the other side of the aisle.