Obama has nominated Berkeley Law School professor Goodwin Liu to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. NRO's Bench Memos has important and illuminating background information about Liu, an intellectually underwhelming Left-wing hack, here, here and here.
Although it's probably expecting too much, my hope is that Senate Republicans come together and filibuster this joker, much as the Dems filibustered Miguel Estrada into abandoning his nomination by Bush to the DC Court of Appeals. Of course, unlike Estrada, filibustering Liu here would be justified given Liu's stated judicial philosophy and less than impressive credentials in the legal profession.
Update: Ed Whelan at Bench Memos easily smacks down a couple of Kool-Aid drinking pro-Liu bloggers.
5 comments:
Jealous much?
A truly tiresome rhetorical Left-wing tactic, Susie (if that's your real name): You don't like the argument and can't substantively refute it, so you dismiss the argument by mindlessly casting an aspersion. Grow up.
HI Roger,
We don't know each other. I found this post through a Google Search for Goodwin Liu and religious (because I don't really know what the man's religious background is, and with all the talk of putting up another protestant...).
To be fair to Susie (whom I also don't know), your "argument" to which she responded to was that Liu was "an intellectually underwhelming Left-wing hack." You also said he had "less than impressive credentials in the legal profession." Not exactly award-winning rhetoric, right?
You're the first person I've read to claim he's "intellectually underwhelming." By that, do you just mean you disagree with his conclusions? Or is it some kind of swipe at the man's intelligence?
Stanford undergrad, Rhodes scholar, Yale Law, SCOTUS clerkship, professorship at a top 5 law school... if you find those credentials "less than impressive" then I suppose you probably have a very high standard for your court of appeals judges.
Did you get a chance to listen to any of his confirmation hearing? I'm not sure that anyone there would agree he's a "hack." To me, the most persuasive and troubling criticism has to do with his own opposition to Bush nominees for SCOTUS. I'm conflicted over whether he should be treated the way we would have other nominees treated, or if he should be treated the way he would have other nominees treated.
I've read the Whelan articles a few times. I don't know what to say. Judges and academics disagree about the "best" method for constitutional interp., and I think the public mostly evaluates judges by the outcomes the court reaches rather than by any understanding of the reasoning.
I think that Liu does a pretty decent job of defending an alternative paradigm to originalism. But I'm not so sure that much of that matters for an appellate court judge. How often is a judge asked to decide a constitutional case on a blank slate? Particularly where he must persuade at least one colleague to join the opinion, how often will his judicial philosophy really affect the result of the court?
Texas Lawyer,
By "intellectually underwhelming" I mean the man's positions/conclusions/rationalizations on various issues.
Regarding his confirmation hearing, Liu very much confirmed he's a hack as Ed Whelan illustrates in several blog posts on Bench Memos.
Also, by Liu's "less than impressive credentials," I clearly mean in my post the amount of experience Liu possesses as an attorney. According to the Powerline blog post I linked to, Liu has about 3 years experience as a practicing attorney. That's not long enough to qualify to be a temporary judge in the California state courts.
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