During the Bush administration, many notable conservatives, including Mark Levin, Rush, and Sean Hannity, argued that the sixty-vote requirement to approve judicial nominees is unconstitutional, and that once the nominee emerges from committee, he or she is entitled to an up or down vote on the Senate floor. Some even advocated the nuclear option to remove the filibuster from the process. Hatch, himself, is on record as opposing the filibuster for judicial nominees (http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/hatch200501120729.asp).
Perhaps Hatch is just being intellectually honest -- if the Constitution requires an up or down vote for Republican nominees, then it also requires an up or down vote for RAT nominess.
For the record, I was against the nuclear option back then as I am now, because I had the foresight to realize that at some point in the future we would face an uber liberal nominee and might need the filibuster to protect the SCOTUS and the Constitution. What goes around, comes around, and if I were in charge of the GOP, I would do everything I legally can to block Kagan, even if that requires an around the clock reading from the Senate floor of Rev. Wright's sermons.
Thanks for your lucid insight.
Concerning this ...
> an around the clock reading from the Senate floor of Rev.
> Wright’s sermons.
... as delicious a prospect that is, there probably isn’t one Republican in the Senate with the spine to do it.