I'm Pissed the R Assholes Have Held up Liu's Nomination

[tishaLA]

Two of President Obama's choices for the federal bench in California have been dealt a setback, as the Senate adjourned for a month and sent back to the White House the nominations of UC Berkeley law professor Goodwin Liu and San Francisco Magistrate Edward M. Chen.

Liu and Chen face solid Republican opposition, and their chances of being confirmed now look to be in doubt.

Under a rarely invoked rule, the Senate must agree to carry over pending nominations when it goes on a 30-day recess. But Republican leaders objected to carrying over several disputed nominees, including Liu and Chen."The Republicans are obstructing and, in effect, trying to kill these nominations," Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Friday. "It is tragic because these are very worthy nominees who deserve to have their nominations debated and put to a vote."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-senate-judge-20100807,0,4462301.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+latimes/news/nationworld/nation+%28L.A.+Times+-+National+News%29

I watched this guy's confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee and....just wow. He was one of the most impressive nominees I have ever seen. Those of you who watched Kagen's hearings know how impressive she was and how she seemed to grow in stature during the hearings, but Liu's were even more impressive. He's smart as a whip, has an incredible resume, etc. His problem is that, unlike Kagen, who mostly succeeded in being a tabula rasa, Liu had the audacity to be a real liberal, complete with bona fides from the ACLU and a lot of papers and speeches that, among other things, criticized the judicial reasoning of Alito. So the wingnut assholes--and even those who pretend to be "fair," like Lindsay Graham--have decided to do him in.

One of my favorite things about Liu, though, was that when it came time for him to make his opening statement, he said "I don't have an opening statement, Senator. I'm ready to take your questions." Old Arlen was caught off guard by how "unorthodox" that was; I admired him for wanting to cut through the say-nothing bullshit and political pablum inherent in those statements.