AT 3:15 P.M. Thursday, Aug. 6, the nation witnessed the confirmation of its first Hispanic justice to the Supreme Court. By a vote of 68 to 31, Sonia Maria Sotomayor, daughter of the Bronx and Puerto Rico, became the 111th person and only the third woman to join the highest court in the land. The vote brought with it several other firsts: the first time in some four decades of service on Capitol Hill that Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) was unable to cast a vote on a Supreme Court nomination; the first time in their three decades of judging...