Dahlia Lithwick has a good column pointing out that few of the nominees on Obama's SCOTUS shortlist are proud liberals:
These are good questions to which I have no answers. But the hardest question I keep getting from liberal law students—and the most painful to answer—is why so few of their heroes are in serious consideration. Let me be clear that Garland, Kagan, and Diane Wood all have admirers and enthusiasts. But for a generation of law students that has grown up revering American Constitution Society stalwarts such as Dawn Johnsen, Eric Holder, Pamela Karlan, John Payton, Laurence Tribe, Goodwin Liu, David Cole, and my own partner in crime Walter Dellinger, among others, the absence of most of these names from even the long shortlist is demoralizing.
Lithwick is perfectly correct when she writes, "The lesson for many progressives is that the only way to be taken seriously as a viable nominee is to be either perfectly opaque or perfectly silent." I part ways with her here however:
By calling even Obama's moderate shortlisters unhinged, conservative judicial activists have knocked any genuine liberal out of play in advance of the game.
Look, Republicans didn't do that. If Obama nominates a judicial moderate in order to avoid a fight, it's because the White House wanted to avoid a fight. Just because the bully kicks sand in your face doesn't mean you have to cry about it.
-- A. Serwer