LA Tines: Goodwin Liu comes through

[usregimechange]

Republicans have finally had their shot at Goodwin Liu, the UC Berkeley professor nominated to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, and Liu is still standing. In a mostly superficial and scripted hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, Liu's critics raised only one substantial issue to buttress their case that he is outside the mainstream, and Liu refuted it.

In what we hope wasn't a preview of hearings for President Obama's next Supreme Court nominee, the proceedings plumbed irrelevancies such as Liu's tardiness in submitting some articles and speeches, his dearth of trial experience and his past criticism of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Republicans recycled familiar rhetoric about "judicial activism" and the need for judges to "interpret the statutes and Constitution as written," as if the meaning of those documents was always self-evident...

To sum up: Liu is, as the American Bar Assn. found, well qualified. His views are well within any definition of "mainstream" legal thought. He should be confirmed.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-ed-liu-20100423,0,5722070.story