Let us say right off the bat that, in fact, we do not think Senator Schumer is a racist. But no doubt there are a lot of people out there who will be watching, as Mr. Schumer maneuvers in hearings today at Washington against the elevation to the federal appeals bench of Miguel Estrada. For the charge of racism against Mr. Schumer is no more ridiculous than that leveled by liberal democrats against the opponents of, say, Judge Ronnie White in Missouri. He was, remember, a nominee of President Clinton for the federal bench who was blocked, with Mr. Ashcroft playing a role in the opposition, in a dispute over Judge White’s record on capital punishment.

At the time there were all sorts of efforts aimed at nursing the notion that Mr. Ashcroft’s motivations were tainted with racism. One of those coyly pushing forward the suggestion was Mr. Schumer. He was quoted in the February 9, 2001, number of the Austin American-Statesman as saying he found the context of Mr. Ashcroft’s opposition to Judge White “extremely troubling.” Mr. Schumer, wrote the editor of the National Review, Rich Lowry, the same week, “had allowed he doesn’t think Ashcroft is a racist, ‘but at certain instances, I don’t think he’s shown enough sensitivity toward America’s long and troubled history with race.'”

Which is almost precisely how we feel about Mr. Schumer. He may not be a racist, but he lacks a sensitivity to the racial dimensions of this nomination. It’s not enough to permit Americans of Hispanic background and minorities to serve on the courts. Minorities deserve to be represented in all the varieties of their political and ideological views. The variety of these views have grown rapidly in the last generation, as the liberal prescriptions for ending racism and expanding opportunity have so often proved to be failures. The community from which Mr. Estrada comes is developing a particularly lively and ardent conservative faction. It may not be a majority. But it is a distinguished and developing point of view.

All this talk about how Mr. Estrada needs to produce the internal memorandi from his days in the office of the Solicitor General is but part of the blocking maneuvers Mr. Schumer is orchestrating. The New York Times suggests that the precedent for such a request of internal documents goes back to the hearings on Judge Bork. That’s something the Times may come to regret bringing up. The hearings on Judge Bork were the template for the kind of ad hominem attack for which Mr. Estrada is being set up. The wiser course is for Mr. Schumer to focus on Mr. Estrada’s current thinking, his integrity and his competence, which has caused the American Bar Association to give him, unanimously, its highest rating. Eventually Mr. Schumer will come to grasp the concept of real balance on an appeals court.