This Administration [of Barack Obama] favors a pluralistic world and respects cultural differences, so it's wrong for the West and American elitists to judge how women are treated under Sharia. I'm going too long on all this, but I choke up on the President's legacy of reaching out to the Muslim world. It's an emotional thing.

Judge [Samuel Alito], there's a genuine struggle going on well beyond you, well beyond the Congress, in America about how to read the Constitution.

The Constitution provides for one democratic moment, Judge, before a lifetime of judicial independence, when the people of the United States are entitled to know as much as we can about the person that we're about to entrust with safeguarding our future and the future of our kids.

This [Judge Samuel Alito] may be one of the most significant or consequential nominations that the Senate will vote on since I've been here in the last three decades.

I acknowledge these are very tough jobs a judge has in determining whether or not there is an openness that is required under the Constitution.