Merrick Garland Confirmation
Another View
Following on the footsteps of Sen. Orin Hatch, Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake just did one of those, “let’s confirm President Barack Obama’s pick if we lose in November” schticks:
If we come to a point, I've said all along, where we're going to lose the election, or we lose the election in November, then we ought to approve him quickly. Because I'm certain that he'll be more conservative than a Hillary Clinton nomination comes January.
Garland is the Obamacare of judicial picks. Just like Obama took a plan designed by the Heritage Foundation and presented it to Republicans in the fervent hope they’d jump aboard, Garland was a pick designed to earn Republican support. Indeed, they had praised him repeatedly in the past, overwhelmingly confirmed him to his current post.
But of course, Republicans are doing that weird thing where they refuse to evenconsider his nomination. It boggles the mind. Why not go through the motions of hearings, then shake their heads sadly while saying “tsk tsk he’s too liberal” before shooting him down? Why let his nomination hang there?
Apparently, it’s because they want to keep Garland in their back pocket in case Hillary Clinton wins the White House. (Let’s put “in case” in scare quotes, actually.) This is the GOP trying to have it both ways—try to hold on to that conservative seat in the off-chance that Donald Trump wins, but preventing Clinton from nominating someone more liberal when she ends up winning.
(And if you think Clinton won’t nominate someone more liberal, you are probably someone who tries to tar her for every bad thing her husband did during his eight years in the White House, right? If so, good for you! But you don’t get to then ignore that it was Bill who nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.)
Here’s the bottom line: The GOP is sitting on Merrick Garland’s nomination. They WILL lose control of the Supreme Court, but they can get a lot worse than Garland. So they can either confirm him now, before the GOP convention in July, or they might as well shut the fuck up and look on helplessly as Clinton and a Democratic fliibuster-free Senate fill the seat.
The last thing we need is for Republicans to think they have a safety valve, that they can come in during the lame duck session, after having lost the White House and Senate, and then confirm an inferior candidate to the High Court.
It needs to be Garland now, or forever hold your peace. Republicans don’t deserve any safety valves. They sure as hell haven’t earned them.
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