The state Senate has a chance today to demonstrate its grasp of the critical role it plays in the selection of state judges — and that role isn't to do the selecting.

The part it plays, according to the script of state and federal constitutions, is to "advise and consent" to the executive branch, confirming or rejecting, in the case of the state of Hawai'i, whomever the governor nominates.

And in the specific case of Katherine Leonard's nomination by Gov. Linda Lingle to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals, senators need to review whether her credentials and character have qualified and prepared her for the bench.

Those speaking on her behalf at Friday's hearing gave the very accomplished civil attorney high marks for her legal acumen, which, they underscored, is what an appellate judge needs, not trial experience. Leonard, like members of the current appellate court before their appointments, has not been a trial judge.

What she needs and what she has, they said, is the mind for legal analysis, the core duty on the intermediate court. On the nature of the job, most dispassionate judicial observers seem to agree.

The Senate will have to mount a pretty powerful argument, weighted with hard evidence, if it intends to counter that logic.

Perhaps Leonard's defenders raised this point because the Senate panel cited the trial-judge factor in its dismissal of Lingle's previous nominee for the post, Randal Lee: Other judges had more experience.

But that raises the key issue. The senators' job isn't to sift through the nominees and reject one because they would have preferred another. It is to make sure the governor's nominee meets reasonable standards of competence and character.

Otherwise, the Constitution would have the Senate do the appointing, period.

The legal community and the voters at large now will watch to see whether the Senate does its job, and for all the right reasons.