However, couldn't we have a nominee who didn't approve of the killing of an American citizen - without charge or trial?

I know that David Cole said that:

[Barron's] confirmation would put in place a judge who will be absolutely vigilant in his protection of civil liberties and his insistence that executive power be constrained by the rule of law.

But wouldn't it possible to find a judge who was vigilant regarding the protection of civil liberties and constraining executive power who didn't violate the civil liberties of an accused and didn't act to constrain executive power to kill him, but instead acted to authorize it?

Is this the best we can do?

Rand Paul isn't calling the shots, although he'd like to be.

That makes no sense to me, sorry.  

If there's one thing of which I am more convinced with than ever, it's this: presidents surround themselves with yes-men, with people who will do their bidding, who will help them accrue power and hold onto it.  I wish I could get over the feeling that this nomination is Barron's reward for being a good soldier, so to speak, and I wish I could trust all this high-flying praise for Barron's devotion to the protection of civil liberties, but I'm having trouble with it.  

And we're supposed to believe there's a devotion to civil liberties so strong in this administration that the guy who wrote the memo essentially authorizing the rights of American citizens could be ignored should be elevated to the federal bench?  Our judicial system needs more people like that?

I call BS, and so does Marcy Wheeler:

Frankly, it is not hard to make the argument that what Barron has done is actually worse than the travesties of John Yoo and Jay Bybee. As unthinkable, heinous and immoral as torture is, and it is certainly all that, it is a discrete violation of domestic and international law. It is definable crime.

But what David Barron did in, at a minimum, the Awlaki Targeted Kill Memo (there are at least six other memos impinging on and controlling this issue, at a minimum of which at least one more is known to be authored by Barron, and we don't even deign to discuss those apparently), was to attack and debase the the very foundational concept of Due Process as portrayed in the Bill of Rights. Along with Habeas Corpus, Due Process is literally the foundation of American criminal justice fairness and freedom under our Constitution.

David Barron attacked that core foundation. Sure, it is in the so called name of terrorism today, tomorrow it will justify something less in grade. And something less the day after. Such is how Constitutional degradation happens. And there is absolutely nothing so far known in Mr. Barron's handiwork to indicate it could not be adapted for use domestically if the President deems it so needed. Once untethered from the forbidden, once unthinkable Executive Branch powers always find new and easier uses. What were once vices all too easily become habits. This is exactly how the once proud Fourth Amendment has disappeared into a rabbit hole of "exceptions".

This damage to Due Process occasioned by David Barron can be quite easily argued to be more fundamental and critical to the Constitution, the Constitution every political and military officer in the United States is sworn to protect, than a temporally limited violation of criminal statutes and international norms on torture as sanctioned by Yoo and Bybee. But it is not treated that way by cheering Dems and liberals eager to confirm one of their own, a nice clean-cut Harvard man like the President, to a lifetime post to decide Constitutional law. What was detested for Jay Bybee, and would certainly be were John Yoo ever nominated for a federal judgeship, is now no big deal when it comes to David Barron. Constitutional bygones baybee; hey Barron is cool on same sex marriage, what a guy! Screw Due Process, it is just a quaint and archaic concept in a piece of parchment paper, right?

[snip]

If Goodwin Liu and Dawn Johnsen, two individuals who had proven their desire to protect the Constitution, had received this kind of support, this country, and the world, would be a better place. Instead, Mr. Obama has reserved his all out push for a man who, instead, opted to apply situational ethics to gut the most basic Constitutional concept of Due Process. That's unacceptable, but at a minimum we should have the benefit of proper analysis of Barron's work before it happens.

The Official Secrets Act is not to protect secrets, it is to protect officials.

But there's much more worrying information about Mr. Barron than his mere partisan inconsistency. In short, Barron is a judicial supremacist who wants to use the federal judiciary as a weapon to advance his hard-left political vision. Stay tuned.

John Yoo:

The real story revealed by the [Barron] memo is that the Obama administration is trying to dilute the normal practice of war with law-enforcement methods. Its approach reflects the mind-set of an administration populated with officials who spent the Bush years decrying military methods then employed and are now trying to impose a weaker law-enforcement approach to combating terrorism. . . .

WASHINGTON--David Barron, a Harvard professor and husband of gubernatorial candidate Juliette Kayyem, cleared a key hurdle to winning confirmation to a powerful position as a federal appellate judge in Boston on Wednesday.

The Senate voted 52 to 43, mostly along party lines, to move Barron's confirmation forward. A final vote is expected Thursday, and he is expected to be confirmed.