Justice Scalia deadFollow

They look alike on the interwebz.

What kind of petulant nonsense is this? The answer is obvious: Run out the clock. Act as though you're on board with the process as usual and then slowly hold hearings and more hearings until you reach a point where, darn, there's just too many issues and this guy won't work. Oh, and look at how late it's getting. Gee, I wish Obama had given us a better candidate but them's the breaks.

It would be obvious to anyone paying attention what's going on but most people aren't really paying attention and under the din of the election the process would become old news in a hurry. Certainly it would be a million times less obvious than McConnell stomping his foot and holding his breath the very day Scalia's death was reported. And a million times less ridiculous than the Senate thinking that they're going to pick the president's nominee for him.

Well, I was referring more to the "Can you even think of a thing? HUH??" weirdness. I guess he was mad that I thought his idea was dumb.

McConnell himself had previously wrote that changing the ideological bent of the Supreme Court was a legitimate use of the president's platform and authority and shouldn't be a hurdle for passing the Senate. We could call McConnell a hypocrite or try to invent a bunch of reasons why it's ever-so-different now but the honest answer is that the people who donate money to Republicans are the sort who want the GOP to blanketly obstruct Obama. There's no change in philosophy or sudden epiphanies at work here, just a need for money and bending to the whims of those who supply the majority of it.

Edited, Feb 18th 2016 8:29am by Jophiel

And therein lies the problem. They could do this (and I agree that it's a much better approach than McConnell puffing his chest out and pretending to be anything other than the mousy man he is), but the counter will be a drumbeat of media stories talking about the obstructionist Senate, run by obstructionist Republicans who are preventing the very capable and qualified candidate(s) that Obama has selected from being confirmed. You and I both know that the puffed chest language from McConnell is designed assure conservatives that under his watch they wont confirm a liberal justice to replace Scalia. But you and I both know that the process of doing that will be precisely the same as what you just mentioned. They'll hold hearings. And more hearings. And the set things aside. And put it over here. And put it over there. And shift it around the schedule. But again, we both know what the Dems and their surrogates in the media will say in response.

The story will be all about the eminent qualifications of the candidate in question, and how terrible it is that Senate Republicans refuse to confirm him/her. And the more you run the clock out, the more they'll run that story. You actually drag the whole thing out, tip toeing around the core issue. And in the process give the media an endless amount of material to attack you on. Trust me, we conservatives have seen this play out, and it rarely works in our favor.

Getting out in front of it puts the "blame" for lack of movement on a confirmation back on Obama. If the GOP takes your approach, they have no answer when they are asked why it's taking so long. Well, none that wont be attacked constantly by the media. If they start out on day one and say "we wont replace Scalia with a liberal justice", it sets expectations. If they are later questioned on why they aren't confirming a given nominee, they can point back to that earlier statement and say "we said we wouldn't appoint a liberal justice, but Obama sent us a liberal justice". It puts it further back on Obama.


I happen to think that providing a helpful list of names who they would confirm puts that even more on Obama. It counters the next argument made (and frankly already being made). The whole bit about the need to fill the vacancy "in a timely manner". If the GOP just waits for Obama to select someone and then sits on that selection, then they get hit with failing to fill that seat. If they tell Obama "if you want to fill the seat quickly, here's a list of names that we'll confirm in a timely manner", they can just point to that list anytime someone asks about this issue, and say "hey. We told him how to get that seat filled. It's on him for not taking our suggestion".

I don't see anyway that this actually hurts the GOP. Which, I'm guessing, is why you don't like it.



No one said that they'd make his pick for him. Just provide a list of names they would confirm quickly if selected. Then leave it up to the president to make his own choice. He's free to pick anyone he wants. But if he picks someone off the list, it's a good bet that person wont be confirmed. This gives the GOP the media leverage to claim that they were the ones trying to speed up the process, and the president chose to be partisan instead. Again, I don't see anyway that this hurts the GOP at all. If anything, it makes them look like they're trying to help the process, while Obama will look like he's deliberately trying to make things take longer.

Obama is the customer ordering food at a restaurant. Your argument is that providing a menu of meals that the restaurant is able/willing to serve is somehow a dumb idea. it's not. It's a lot faster than having the customer ask "will you make this?", "will you make that?", etc, etc. over and over until he stumbles upon something that they make that he wants. And hey. He might just discover that he's in a vegan only restaurant, but he wants to order steak. Um... He can insist that it's his right to choose to order steak all day long, but he's never going to get it. If the restaurant advertises that they are a vegan restaurant and don't serve meat of any kind, and provide a menu of precisely what they do serve, it kinda makes him look like the idiot for ordering steak. If they instead pretend that they'll cook him a steak, but then sit in the kitchen clanging knives and pots around pretending to cook, but with no intention of ever actually making a steak for him, at some point, they'll look like the ones being dishonest here, right?


I get why you *want* the GOP to do this, but it's not actually the better course of action. The best course is to set expectations right up front. Tell Obama what kind of nominees they will confirm, and what kind they wont. And yes, if they want to provide him with a list, that might even be better. Again, that puts any question of who's being unrealistic on Obama. Trying to string this along will almost certainly backfire on the GOP IMO.

Edited, Feb 18th 2016 7:17pm by gbaji

You keep saying that I don't like your idea. I love your idea. I think it would be a complete disaster for the GOP which is why I love it.

You're under some impression that I hate your idea because it won't hurt Republicans or help Democrats enough which is pretty ironic since I feel the diametric opposite. If someone told me that McConnell read your idea here and was going for it, I would sincerely be tickled pink. The fact that you're convinced that it's an awesome plan is pretty secondary.

I thought that "menu" analogy was embarrassing enough without me having to draw attention to it.

Well, it appears that whoever killed Scalia had it in for Harper Lee, as well. First one ailing 89-year-old and now another; is no one safe!?

Also, Glen Beck is insinuating that God killed Scalia in order to help Cruz get elected. Which would make God kind of a diCk, really.

Did God also kill David Bowie to help Cruz?

Cracks in the wall: Polls showing 60/40 support to pass a nominee in Ohio and Pennsylvania where the GOP senators are in tough re-election battles. A national poll is showing 56/34.

IL Senator Mark Kirk has come out in favor of hearings... only ten days after the event and after the blowback started. Always a man on the forefront of doing the right thing, that Kirk.

You talk to your senator a lot?

Yeah. What about that is confusing to you? If the only restaurant in town does not serve vegan meals, you're free to jump up and down and complain about it all day long, but it's not magically going to make vegan meals appear on the menu. And by providing said menu ahead of time, it can save a ton of time and effort. And yeah, Obama is free to just not go to the restaurant for food at all. But that's equivalent to what folks are talking about: Don't nominate anyone and let the next president, who hopefully will be more reasonable, do it instead.

If he want's to get a nominee appointed before he leaves office, he has to actually pick a nominee who the Senate will confirm. Doing otherwise just wastes all our time.

I also think what most people are missing in this is that the constitutional power of the president is:



He's supposed to, by constitutional requirement, seek the "advice" of the Senate when making his choice. There's nothing at all wrong with the Senate advising him with regard to which potential nominees they'll confirm and which they will not. In fact, it's the process that is actually supposed to happen. So I'm not sure why Joph and others think this is such a terrible idea. He's free to declare it so, preferring some imaginary world where this isn't a normal thing, but that doesn't make it so.

Of course the president has the authority to propose any name he wants. But the Senate is under no obligation to confirm that choice. The problem here is that most presidents will actually seek out advice from the Senate about their choices first and then actually take their suggestions to heart. I suspect that Obama will just make a show of this, then deliberately chose someone he knows they wont support, and then spin this in the media. Hence my point about the Senate actually short circuiting that process by presenting a list first, complete with public statements about how the president can easily fill the vacancy if he actually takes the advice of the Senate, and if he does not do as advised then he'll be responsible for the seat not being filled.

I think that's better than trying to justify things after the fact once the media has already spun this in Obama's favor. We've seen too much of that happen in the past.

There's like a zero percent chance that a Democrat gets elected president this cycle and the senate doesn't flip. Assuming Clinton wins, what will happen is that the GOP will lose any leverage they had. If they try to filibuster or obstruct Clinton's choices, newly appointed Senate Majority Leader Schumer will change the rules to a straight majority, citing the fact that the GOP blocked Obama's Constitutional authority but they wouldn't be blocking Clinton's as well.