For the record, I recommend Ed Whelan’s article on President Barack Obama’s nominee to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Goodwin Liu.

Having said that, where has lawyer Thomas Goldstein, the publisher of SCOTUSblog, been the past 3 decades?

Volkoh Conspiracist Jonathan H. Adler sums up Goldstein’s position on the Liu nomination thusly:

Goldstein’s central argument is that Republican opposition to Liu’s confirmation will set a disturbing precedent of rejecting nominees based upon their ideology.

Does the name Robert H. Bork ring a bell? The precedent Goldstein’s talking about was set decades ago by Democrats.

And here’s the kicker, from Adler:

Senate Democrats have openly opposed confirmation of appellate and Supreme Court nominees well within the “mainstream” of conservative legal thought.  Senate Democrats orgainzed hearings to justify the imposition of such ideological tests, and the consideraton of a judicial nominee’s ideology has been advocated by numerous Democrats, including then-Senator Obama and, interestingly enough, by Professor Liu.  As I noted before, Liu called upon Senators to consider Judge Samuel Alito’s “judicial philosophy” and reject his confirmation because he was outside of the judicial “mainstream.”  In short, Liu himself sought to  “set the bar on whether certain substantive views on the law are just too extreme to permit confirmation” in such a way as to exclude “brilliant and conscientious lawyers” — albeit only those from the “idegological [sic] right.”

What’s good for the goose…