Unplugged: The "Degraded" Confirmation Hearings

Doug Kendall, the president of liberal research organization and law firm the Constitutional Accountability Center, told CBS News' Wyatt Andrews on "Washington Unplugged" on Tuesday that such party-line votes have "just become the reality of Supreme Court confirmation politics in America today."

"It's easier, as a senator of an opposing party, to oppose a nominee than it is to vote for" him or her, Kendall said. He told Andrews that Graham "paid a political price within the conservative wing of his party" for his decision to support Sotomayor.

In his remarks Tuesday, Graham suggested that the Senate should go back to the old way of doing things – where qualified candidates were overwhelmingly confirmed, even if they were expected to have certain ideological leanings. "He's bemoaning that things have changed," Kendall noted.

Also discussed was the push to reform the process in order to get nominees to be more forthcoming. Sotomayor, like her predecessors, said very little about her beliefs in order to improve her odds of confirmation.

A Supreme Court confirmation hearing "is a moment where we can talk to America about the direction of the court, and where it should be going, and what the law and the Constitution says and means," Kendall said. "And I think the process has degraded to the point where it's really not functioning in the way it should be functioning…It's not a teachable moment, it's not a time where America, when they tune in, learn about the big debates that we're having."

Watch the entire episode above.