Sotomayor Confirmed in a 68/31 Partisan Vote

Now there are two women on the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor.

The Wall Street Journal compared Sotomayor's confirmation with Alito who also won on a partisan vote, 58 to 42:

"During his 2005 confirmation hearings, Democrats criticized his membership in a conservative Princeton alumni group that was critical of affirmative-action efforts. This time, it was Republicans who criticized Judge Sotomayor for her former membership in a Latino advocacy group, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, and for lectures in which her aspirations for Latinos crossed into "racism," as Sen. James Inhofe (R., Okla.) charged.."

"Democrats said her 17 years of experience on the federal bench, where she compiled a conventional, if liberal-leaning, judicial record, coupled with her working-class background, would equip her to understand the real-world impact of judicial decisions. Republicans, however, seized on the word Mr. Obama used to describe a quality he had sought in selecting her -- "empathy" -- as evidence that he expected his nominee to skew legal cases to favor minorities."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124955682673110741.html