Koh nomination hearing on Tuesday

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee announced this afternoon that the hearing for Yale Law dean Harold Koh's nomination as the State Department's top legal adviser will be Tuesday afternoon.

Koh, who is also believed to be on the short list for the Supreme Court, is facing growing opposition from conservatives, who say that he puts too much stock in foreign legal opinions.

Koh has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's decisions on torture and other issues.

Just today, Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration official, said on the website of his Center for Security Policy that the Foreign Relations Committee "will have an opportunity to demonstrate why the framers gave the Senate the constitutional power to confirm presidential appointees. If they fail to exercise that power vigorously with respect to the nomination of Harold Koh to be the top State Department lawyer, they will not only have been derelict. They will be accomplices to an assault on our Constitution that will ultimately result in an unprecedented, and likely permanent, derogation of the Senate's vital role and responsibilities."