With the Senate’s full attention on the health-care reconciliation bill that’s designed to fix a few of the flaws (not the big ones, unfortunately) in the health-care legislation that President Obama signed into law yesterday, it’s no surprise that the Senate committee hearings scheduled for today—including Goodwin Liu’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee—ended up getting canceled.

More precisely, Senate Republicans declined to waive the Senate rule (Rule XXVI, paragraph 5(a)) that bars committees from meeting more than two hours after the Senate day started (and, in any event, from meeting after 2:00 p.m.). Invocation of this rule occurs from time to time, and the pendency on the Senate floor of important debate on major legislation clearly provides ample cause to invoke it.

It’s unfortunate for Goodwin Liu that he and his supporters have faced the inconvenience of having his confirmation hearing postponed. But much as Judiciary Committee chairman Pat Leahy is trying to blame Republicans for that inconvenience, it’s Leahy who should have known that it made no sense to try to cram through a hearing on a very controversial nominee on the same day that Senate Democrats are working to cram through the reconciliation bill. In particular, Leahy knows quite well that key Republican members of the Judiciary Committee who would want to take part in questioning Liu—including Hatch, Kyl, Cornyn, Grassley, and Coburn—are actively engaged in debate on the reconciliation bill.

Leahy blames extraordinary Republican obstruction for the fact that he can’t proceed with the hearing on Liu a mere 28 days after Liu’s nomination. But it’s worth noting that (as a reliable Senate staffer informs me) President George W. Bush’s appellate nominees waited an average of 135 days before receiving a hearing. (The average for President Obama’s nominees has been only 48 days.)

Further, when the committee held a hearing on President Bush’s nomination of the exceptionally well qualified Peter Keisler to the D.C. Circuit 33 days after Keisler’s nomination, Senator Schumer complained that Republicans were “trying to break the land speed record” and that the hearing was taking place “with astonishing and inexplicable speed.” Keisler’s record of publications and speeches was a fraction of Liu’s, and Keisler enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support (but never got confirmed). When distinguished law professor Michael McConnell, whose credentials at the time dwarfed Liu’s now, was nominated in 2001, Leahy and his fellow Democrats forced McConnell to wait more than 16 months for a hearing.

It’s also noteworthy that Leahy yesterday canceled the much-anticipated hearing on Attorney General Eric Holder’s management of the Justice Department. For what pressing purpose? So that Holder and committee Democrats could attend the White House signing ceremony for the health-care bill.