Think about that any time someone laments Santorum isn't the nominee.
The Senate always just "rubber-stamps" presidential USSC nominees. Why that occurs, I don't know. My guess is it's about the "good ole boys" club in both parties. Other than Bork and Thomas, I can't remember the last time the Senate contested a Supreme court nominee. Of course, it was the Dimocrats who fought against the above.
I'm no longer a republican. They are gutless. Obama will get 4 more years to destroy us with "liberal lite Romney" as a weak nominee. Would have loved to see Newt debate Bambi, but he wasn't pretty enough in our "cult of personality". With all Newts faults, he knows what's good about our heritage and history, but has a goofy smile and talks above the dumb-downed populace. Santorum was also a pretty boy like Mittens, but doesn't know squat. Ron Paul is a dipshit.
This dying nation wants smooth talking celebrities who speak in generalities for what they will do for the "gimmes", and that includes Soccor-Moms. Newt knows history and the failings of socialism, but no one wants to hear such big concepts and historical precedents as to why Hopey and Changey is failing. Just look pretty and promise me stuff, please. Pfft.
Although it has been disputed that Alexander Tytler said the following, it still holds true within the context of my point:
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship."
Here are some verifiable quotes by Alexis de Tocqueville, a scholar of early American history.
"A democratic government is the only one in which those who vote for a tax can escape the obligation to pay it."
"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."
She had previously been a Republican appointee to the Federal Court. A Second Circuit Court of Appeals appoinment is not usually regarded as a "fast track" to the Supreme Court - certainly not anymore so than any other appeals court - and there is no factual basis that this judge in particular would be on a "fast track" for the Supreme Court to be appointed by someone more than a decade later to be a Supreme Court Justice that could not have been forseen as being President to make such an appointment at the time of Santorum's vote. Your argument simply does not make sense.