But not empathy

"There were five things that were on Obama's mind: age, experience, independence, confidence, and diversity," Mr. Ogletree recalled. "And when I say diversity, it's not just background and race; I mean diversity of experience, of character, of judgment, and of points of view."

Yet according to the local conservative intelligentsia, we're to remain obsessed with "empathy," the derivation of which is the reply to a question posed to Obama during a Planned Parenthood event in 2007.

(Listen to the audio clip, wherein Prof. Esenberg asserts no fewer than three times* to radio clown Charlie Sykes that "empathy" is "the criteria" [sic] for Obama's judicial selections. Sykes, for his part, contrasts "empathy" with "following the law," apparently unmindful of just how much conflicting and contradictory law there is to follow.)

Has anyone thought to search for evidence of this despicable human trait within Judge Sotomayor's 17-year career as a federal judge?

Glenn Greenwald has:

Without a trace of sympathy or even interest in the plight of the plaintiff, Sotomayor methodically recounted the evidence of discrimination and, in as coldly and legalistic a manner as possible, concluded that Norville "produced insufficient evidence at trial to show that the hospital" discriminated against her. She thus affirmed the trial judge's dismissal of Norville's claims of race and age discrimination.

Perhaps this is why conservatives have lately directed their more substantive concerns instead to Sotomayor's ethnic gastronomy.

* First as a bald assertion, second in furtherance of igniting a strawman, and third in a conclusion. Quite the achievement.