At the outset of this morning’s hearing on the Third Circuit nomination of David Porter, Senator Orrin Hatch said the following, starting at 23:15 in the video:

Now, we may also hear about another nomination to the Third Circuit, and how there are purportedly differences in how the blue slip was treated then. But the issue there was the Leahy-Thurmond rule under which the Senate generally stops confirming judicial nominees around the mid-summer in a presidential election year. Chairman Grassley gave our colleagues from Minnesota almost seven months to return blue slips from Judge Stras. President Obama nominate Rebecca Hayward [sic] on March 15, 2016.  Giving the senators from Pennsylvania the same amount of time as the senators from Minnesota would have meant a hearing would not have been held until the late summer at the earliest. So the characterization of this as a blue-slip issue, as Chairman Grassley has explained before, is inaccurate.

And here is my respectful response: liar, liar, pants on fire.