Whose Ox is Being Gored?

It appears that the right's main argument against the confirmation U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor as Supreme Court Justice will likely center around her concurring with the majority in the Ricci v. DeStefano case. The case, which seems to pit competing members of the New Haven, Connecticut Fire Department against each other based on their ethnicity, is currently in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, and is rapidly being plastered all over the media.

Without getting into details of the case, the Third Circuit sided with the City of New Haven, which believed it was complying with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. In other words, they decided the case based on the law and not on "empathy" with the plaintiff. You would think conservatives would admire that, wouldn't you?

Not so fast. The right seems to believe that "empathy" is a legitimate yardstick when the court empathizes with conservative causes. Doug Kendall and Dahlia Lithwick nail it on Slate.