From the May 23 issue of National Journal:

As conservative groups mobilize to oppose the next Supreme Court nominee, President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden will be hard-pressed to complain if the debate centers not on the nominee's resume but on his or her ideology.

After all, when Obama and Biden served in the Senate, they opposed nominees who, by all accounts, had superior brainpower and impressive credentials. They voted no because of philosophical differences with the president's choices.

Biden set the framework for this approach 22 years ago when President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. As Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden sought to upend the Senate's usual approach to evaluating presidential choices. Many of the major nomination battles in the past had revolved around the perceived personal shortcomings of a candidate, but Biden shifted the spotlight toward the person's ideology.

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