Byron York‘s latest Washington Examiner article explores the filibuster that killed an appellate court nomination for Berkley law professor Goodwin Liu.

Liu’s nomination was blocked by a Republican filibuster Thursday — the first successful filibuster against a judicial nominee since Democrats stopped all 10 of George W. Bush’s appeals court nominees from 2003 to 2005. Although no one back then could have predicted that today’s fight would be about Liu, everyone knew it was going to happen sometime. Once Democrats crossed the line to filibuster those Bush nominees, you could bet Republicans would strike back. And now they have.

Liu was as good a target as any for the GOP. A legal scholar who has never been a judge and has little experience practicing law, Liu occupies a place on the far left side of the legal spectrum. To take just one example, Republicans are fond of repeating Liu’s assertion that the Constitution guarantees the right to “expanded health insurance, child care, transportation subsidies, job training, and a robust earned income tax credit.”

“I must have missed that,” Republican Sen. John Cornyn, a former Texas state supreme court justice, said dryly in floor remarks Thursday afternoon.

It wasn’t just Liu’s legal positions that did him in. Republicans were particularly rankled by the professor’s testimony during the 2006 confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Appearing to model his remarks on Ted Kennedy’s infamous 1987 “Robert Bork’s America” speech, Liu said Samuel Alito’s America would be one in which cops kill young suspects over minor crimes, all-white juries send black men to their deaths, and federal agents terrorize innocent civilians. After his own nomination, when he had gotten a taste of criticism himself, Liu apologized, saying his language had been “unduly harsh.” But the damage was done.