Granted, it isn't a ringing endorsement, but the editors of the Washington Post have concluded that there is no legitimate reason to keep Leslie Southwick off the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, despite opposition from liberal groups who want a minority judge and object to a couple of opinions he joined but did not write.

For that reason, and because of his relatively pinched approach to judging, Judge Southwick wouldn't have been our first choice for this vacancy. Nor do we like the results in the custody and racial slur cases. But we cannot find fault with Judge Southwick's narrow but ultimately legitimate interpretation of the law in those cases, and we do not find in his record the anti-gay, anti-worker caricature his opponents have drawn. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the lone Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of his confirmation, got it right when she concluded that if senators were to examine Judge Southwick's entire career, including his stint as a judge advocate in Iraq, they would find a "qualified, circumspect person."

So one of America's most liberal senators and the capital's most liberal newspaper have come out behind Judge Southwick. It is time for the Democrat leadership in Congress to allow a vote -- and, if they are honest, support his nomination.