Discussion: WH Spox: 'No Good Reason' For Lame Duck Confirmation Of Garland

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21

I think he was allowing for the Abe Fortas Chief Justice nomination being stonewalled. A fairly different dynamic in most ways, but still.

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22

Yeah, Garland is definitely a hedge Obamaā€™s offering the Senate. Heā€™s qualified for the job, thereā€™s no question about that. But heā€™s not who I wanted to see, because I think we need more diversity on the Court. Garland is:

  • Another white guy (bringing the total back to 5, 6 if you count Thomas as he ought to be counted).
  • Another Harvard Law alumnus (keeping the Ivy League lock on the Court ā€“ and RBG is the quasi-outlier there with her Columbia JD and even she attended Harvard).
  • Another Republican, for chrissakes (bringing the Republican total back to 5).

Heā€™s an improvement on Fat Tony, but thatā€™s damning with very faint praise. Heā€™s sane, and relative to Fat Tony thatā€™s a yuuuge improvement.

Finally, Josh, donā€™t play stupid with the people. Thereā€™s every reason to delay this until the post-election session, I know it and you know it and I know you know it. Tell the folks: Garland only gets the nod and the vote if Hillary wins in November. See, that wasnā€™t difficult to say, now was it?

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23

I think youā€™re right, but as you say, it was a fairly different dynamic. The recalcitrance against Tyler is the only thing that comes close to (and, Iā€™ll grant, arguably exceeds) the obstruction and vile disrespect for the office of the Presidency being shown by todayā€™s GOP Senators.

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24

I thought it was the injection of the Supreme Court into partisan politicsā€¦

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25

Of course thereā€™s a good reason - keeping the Obama administration from running a properly functioning government.

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26

I donā€™t disagree. This is quite different that Fortasā€™ nomination to the bench (he was already on the SCOTUS) and Johnson had a Dem super majority.

As you correctly point out, you have to go back to Tyler for this level of obstruction and disrespect for the office of POTUS.

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27

My thought exactly. Except - As soon as the polling says your nominee is going down Iā€™m withdrawing the nomination. Donā€™t be so sure you can wait until October.

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28

Stop being all well-informed about stuff ā€“ youā€™re ruining the curve for the rest of the class!

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29

Sad that the White House is pushing this conservative cipher. Heā€™s no Scalia (who is?) but we donā€™t need another Kennedy either.

30

Judge Garland is a very smart dude. The Republicans not so much.

You can bet that the judge will plant an important seed in his 1 on 1 discussions with the few Republican Senators who have agreed to meet with him. That seed, if I donā€™t see a path to being confirmed in time to help the court with a few of the important cases on their docket, then I will pull my name from consideration for the court.

Will the deer whoā€™s been caught in the headlights his whole Senate career be forced to eat his words? McConnell has proven time and again to NOT be a leader with a visionā€¦he is a very myopic and adolescent level thinker.

31

No, that was the first unprecedented injection of partisan politics. This is numberā€¦

Busy counting over hereā€¦

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32

Iā€™m totally stealing thisā€¦

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