Sounds like he agreed with Republicans of today. They think we are stacking the court with justices with a liberal agenda. People saying “it’s ok for us to nom someone and it wasn’t back then because our noms are just and theirs are hacks” sounds like IOKIYAD.
Any suggestion that the President doesn’t get a nom is just wrong IMO. If the majority of the Senate is willing to kick the can down the road by not confirming what most people see as reasonable noms, then those Senators will have to pay for those actions (or be rewarded for them) in their own elections. I would be angry with them if they had encouraged Obama to nominate someone conservative, even said “we’ll only confirm a conservative justice so Obamba better nom one if he wants a confirmation”, then slow boat and deny any nom that wasn’t, but I wouldn’t say it was any more wrong than everything else they do that I disagree with.
What makes this wrong is the refusal to even talk about it. The idea that the President simply doesn’t get a nomination and nothing should be done about it. It looks to me like that’s what Biden was saying then, and he was wrong and it sucks that they can now “rightfully” bash us over the head with it. (I say “rightfully” because they have one of our top Dems agreeing with them, I still think the idea itself is wrong).
It would have been painful to watch. All the good will he has built up as VP would have gone flying out the window if he had run.
And I really do like Biden, always have. But he has such a trail of spouting off things without thinking them through that just doom any hopes for the Presidency.
I think a more appropriate response would have been, “What sorry ass intern was forced to wade through 24 years of my career to come up with a one-liner that has only nominal relationship to the current situation?”
Although it hurts me to say it, 1994 was forever ago, especially in the political world. A world-spanning recession, two wars, three two-term presidents, fall of the Soviet Union, rise of China, War on Terror… why not just make current comparisons to the Trail of Tears or pre-Civil War issues… oh, wait, the Republicans are already doing that.
Actually that attempted filibuster was put into play, because Alito had issues that W’s administration possibly sought to sweep under the rug.
as of now, there is an entire party caucus that could lose four or more votes in a general floor action. As a result that party is now reliant on the judiciary committee to be its firewall.
Once a nomination is made and the vetting begins, if things come up that may be troublesome, Alito and Thomas fit this, it seems totally appropriate to filibuster. Time has proven these two judges to be incompetent for the job.
And this is actually one of the less problematic statements coming from Joe Biden. Joe would have never made it through a campaign because he has a colorful history of gaffes. And we won’t even go into the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas fiasco. That would have doomed him.
