Coming up Wednesday

Day 3 of the Sonia Sotomayor hearings will consist of the senators continuing to question Judge Sotomayor in public --- and something you won't see. It's the closed portion of the confirmation hearing.
 
This happens with every Supreme Court nominee. The members of the Senate Judiciary Committee kick the public out of the room and review the nominee's secret FBI background check. Everyone who wants to be on the Supreme Court has to suffer through the FBI questioning their friends and family, going through their job history, and trying to find out if there's anything about the person that the Senate needs to know.
 
Anything the FBI finds out is considered to be private, so the Judiciary Committee will review that information with the nominee in private. For example, you can bet the FBI asked Sotomayor's doctor about the condition of her diabetes, but that's not something anyone wants to talk about in public.
 
There usually aren't any bombshells in that information. If the FBI found something, you can bet that President Barack Obama knew about it before he nominated Sotomayor, and that it wasn't serious enough for him to pass over the judge for the position.
 
-Jesse J. Holland, AP reporter, Supreme Court