Blood From a Stone: The Compassion of a Conservative Heart

Read this Slate column by Doug Kendall and Dahlia Lithwick, discussing how the Republican outcry over the "empathy" Obama wants his Supreme Court Nominee to have is kind of fake, full of stickum, considering the way they too (not unfairly, if for underhanded purposes from a liberal perspective) play up empathy for those they consider to be "model plaintiffs" for Supreme Court cases they care about (i.e. "white 'victims' of affirmative action").

So despite this clever snippet from an earlier Slate article by Lithwick

And in a delicious Freudian slip, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama snorted: "I don't know what empathy means." You don't say.

apparently, they (conservatives) do. They just don't empathize with our Obama's desire for empathy because the empathy may not go the way they want it to. (And they'd likely be right, of course, in that an Obama nominee's sympathies wouldn't necessarily be with "victims" of affirmative action or those who want to keep handguns at home. Of course, you never know.)

Hypocrisy: It's ok when I do it.