Neal Kathal, an acting solicitor general in Barack Obama’s administration and a law professor at Georgetown, says that liberals should support Neil M. Gorsuch, whom Donald Trump nominated for the Supreme Court Tuesday evening.

Via the New York Times:

I am hard-pressed to think of one thing President Trump has done right in the last 11 days since his inauguration. Until Tuesday, when he nominated an extraordinary judge and man, Neil Gorsuch, to be a justice on the Supreme Court….

Judge Gorsuch has strong conservative bona fides and was appointed to the 10th Circuit by President George W. Bush. But I have seen him up close and in action, both in court and on the Federal Appellate Rules Committee (where both of us serve); he brings a sense of fairness and decency to the job, and a temperament that suits the nation’s highest court.

Kathal’s endorsement comes at a time when America is bitterly divided. Apart from Donald Trump’s surprising presidential win, many liberals feel Republicans stole a Supreme Court seat by declining to hold hearings on Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, nominated following the death of Antonin Scalia.

The Times fanned this flame in an editorial Wednesday morning, and urged Senate Democrats to oppose Gorsuch, though the editorial board admitted the “widely respected” judge would be a slam dunk in normal times.

One can understand the Times frustration (if not their logic). But instead of needlessly impeding a qualified nominee who is a shoe-in for confirmation, perhaps Senate Democrats should consider quickly confirming an exceedingly qualified conservative jurist tapped to replace a brilliant conservative Supreme Court Justice. That, perhaps, would be a first step in helping us return to more normal times.

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Jon Miltimore is senior editor of Intellectual Takeout. Follow him on Facebook.