Barack Obama said from the early days of his campaign and presidency that he wanted to appoint judges who didn’t primarily follow the rule of law but rather judges whose “empathy” was their primary defining characteristic.

Well, just this morning, Obama got his wish with the swearing-in of Sonia Sotomayor as the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Sotomayor was, in my view, not qualified to be on the Court because of her obvious disdain for the rule of law (despite her pretty words during confirmation hearings) and because of the shoddy quality of her work. I can only hope that the grilling she took and her explicit repudiation of “empathy” as a legitimate factor in ruling on a case will remain in her mind as she puts the nation through what could be decades of reminders of just why Barack Obama was such a big mistake.