That’s the title of my new Confirmation Tales post, which recounts some judicial nominations—including those of Merrick Garland to the D.C. Circuit and Sonia Sotomayor to the Second Circuit—that divided Senate Republicans at the outset of Bill Clinton’s second presidential term. My opening paragraph:
From a distance, it’s often tempting to adopt a simplified political-science model in which senators from the same political party operate largely as a cohesive unit and any deviations track neatly along ideological lines. The messy reality is that senators are very independent actors, often with robust egos, who have their own goals, priorities, constituencies, likes and dislikes, ambitions, rivalries, and idiosyncrasies.
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