So now we have a succinct view of how the presidential candidates would pick judges. (The New York Times obliges us here and here.) From Barack Obama:

. . . We need somebody who’s got the heart . . . the empathy to realize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old. And that’s going to be the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.

Obama’s words aren’t new. He set out these guidelines–where else–in a July 2007 speech to Planned Parenthood. Surely the Harvard-educated lawyer could come up with better than this to pass the pro-choice litmus test on judges.

His Yalie nemesis, Hillary Clinton, at least proffered “understand[ing] the role of precedent” and respect for “privacy” to explain what she’ll be looking for in her judicial picks: Here’s the nub of her criteria:

I will appoint well-qualified judges who really respect the Constitution and see it as the living document–which it is–that has given us the core of our values and freedoms for 225 years.

One can have an honest argument over Clinton’s criteria. But Obama’s litany is merely a list of liberal interest groups that he hopes to please.

John McCain–the only one who didn’t attend law school–seems to be the only one who believes that the law, as written, matters most. He said he’ll pick

jurists of the highest caliber, who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference.

Sounds about right.