Paul Mirengoff notes the irony:

The Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are making a major effort to show that empathy is no part of Sonia Sotomayor's judicial decisionmaking. Senator Schumer, in particular, made this the centerpiece of his questioning. He flagged certain cases in which sympathetic litigants did not receive a favorable ruling from Sotomayor. One set of such litigants cited by Schumer was the Ricci plaintiffs, but that assumes Sotomayor had empathy for them, which is doubtful. Schumer also noted that Sotomayor rules in favor of immigrants exactly as often as her court does, on average.

But if Schumer is right, what are we to make of President Obama's statement that empathy in decisionmaking would be an important quality in deciding his Supreme Court nominee? If we take the president at his word, he must have found some evidence of this quality in Sotomayor -- in her opinions, in her writings, and/or in their private interview -- before nominating her. Did Sotomayor con the president?