Lugar to confirm Sotomayor, and White House trumpets

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) became the first Republican senator to announce he’d vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court — and received a boost from no less than the White House.

“Judge Sotomayor is clearly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court and she has demonstrated a judicial temperament during her week-long nomination hearing,” Lugar said in a statement posted on his website Friday. “I will vote to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to serve as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.”

But the statement didn’t come without drawing some attention from the White House, which took the somewhat unusual step of taking Lugar’s statement and tweeting a quote from it and link to it on its official Twitter page.

The White House tweeted:

Sen. Lugar (R-IN): “Judge Sotomayor is clearly qualified…a judicial temperament…I will vote to confirm” http://bit.ly/DSUwL

Lugar has been notably friendly Republican to the Obama administration, occasionally going to bat for candidate and President Obama and allowing himself to be used in ads for Obama during the presidential campaign.

Cross-posted to the Briefing Room.