How low will the Senate Democrats sink?

Hugh Hewitt directs our attention to this post by Carol Platt Liebau regarding potential Supreme Court nominee Michael Luttig. Judge Luttig’s father was murdered, and liberals may be poised to argue that this fact would render him impermissibly biased in death penalty cases (but doesn’t he hear such cases now as a U.S. Court of Appeals judge?) Liebau notes that, “under this reasoning, every potential female justice should be asked whether she’s ever had an abortion — because abortion cases would come up before the Court. And minority candidates would have to discuss how/whether they ever felt discriminated against.” Indeed, it would be appropriate to investigate whether, or to what extent, minority nominees have benefited personally from affirmative action.
Are the Senate Democrats dumb enough to make this argument against Luttig? What a set of litmus tests that would represent — if you’re a conservative, you can’t hold deep religious beliefs and you can’t be closely related to a serious crime victim.