Hatch has been no picnic to work with either. Nice guy, but there is much arm wrestling going on behind the scenes to get him to do the right thing. I have two big beefs with him -- 1) his handing of memogate (the Judiciary Committee memos incident, not Dan Rathergate) and 2) his willingness to capitulate to the Maryland senators' whining on Claude Allen. Allen has been in nominations purgatory not only because of Dem's obstruction but because of Hatch's unwillingness to push the issue.
He is FAR too concerned about what Ted Kennedy, Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin and Pat Leahy think.
Well maybe that was true before, let's see how acts now. I agree he should have dealt with Allen last year but maybe he's waiting, again, till the election is over. Does the 4th circuit still have a seat open? As far as memogate goes I don't know what he did or didn't do about it, if he let it go that would have been a shame. He sounds like a primadonna.
But all that sounds like a personal beef you have with him, but why do you think it affect how he'd rule if he were a Supreme? I think he'd be a conservative justice especially if he has no one else to pander to except himself. Plus, it's a way to get him off the Committee and put Kyl or Sessions in charge. It might be a win-win situation. We don't have a prayer to put a conservative on the SC, Hatch might be the closest thing we have.