Sen. Obama shows the GOP how to stop President Obama’s SCOTUS nomination

The tragic loss of Antonin Scalia set off a political firestorm vis-a-vis his potential replacement. Mitch McConnell said there would be no replacement while Obama was President  and the left went berserk. Big mistake, opines WaPo.  The non-American British citizen John Oliver castigated the GOP for its position:

“Well, that does not bode well because Mitch McConnell is actually pretty good at delaying things for people—whether it’s legislation, court appointments, or orgasms,” joked Oliver. “Believe me, if you ever need to ‘delay, delay, delay’ [an orgasm], just picture [McConnell’s] face and I guarantee you nothing will happen possibly for the rest of your life.”

Barack Obama has even taken to “scolding” the GOP:

President Obama scolded Republican senators on Tuesday for threatening not to hold a vote on anyone he nominates to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

Obama ripped Republicans for suggesting the Scalia vacancy will not be filled until a new president takes office, arguing “that’s not how the system is supposed to work.”

“The Constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to be happen now,” he said in remarks at a press conference following an international summit in California.

“When there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the president is to nominate someone, the Senate is to consider that nomination and either they disapprove of that nominee or that nominee is elevated to the Supreme Court,” the president said. “Historically, this has not been viewed as a question, there is no unwritten law that says it can only be done on off years.

He claims to be “amused” by it.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/obamas-amused-at-gopers-pushing-back-on-scotus-im-accustomed-to-obstructionism/

As I have said repeatedly, being a liberal mean never having to remember yesterday.

Schmuck Schumer (D-NY) railed about conservatives accurately quoting him and his actions in 2007. With 18 months left in Bush’s second term, Schumer said:

“The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance.  We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts; or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito. Given the track record of this President and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court, at least:  I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.”

Now he denies doing what he did and he screams “stop telling the truth!”

As a matter of fact, democrats blocked Republican nominees at least ten times.

8. Joe Biden wrote the playbook for how to “bork” a Supreme Court nominee, a descriptive verb that now means to publicly pillory a nominee’s reputation to make it politically difficult for senators to vote for them. It’s named, of course, after what Democrats did to Robert Bork.

Then-Senator Biden was the chair of the judiciary committee, and he put together what’s now been deemed a “Biden report,” a document detailing Bork’s judicial history and personal background. The judiciary committee voted against Bork’s confirmation by a vote of 9-5.

9. Democratic groups vowed to “bork” Justice Clarence Thomas, George H.W. Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court. They failed, but the personal attacks on Thomas were brutal.

“We’re going to bork him,” said National Organization for Women’s Flo Kennedy. “We need to kill him politically.”

Democrats were reviled by Miguel Estrada because he was a freaking (shudder) “latino.”

Go back to February 2003, the first weeks of a new Republican majority in the Senate, when Democrats were blocking a vote on D.C. court nominee Miguel Estrada. Liberal writer Dahlia Lithwick at Slate covered the upheaval around the filibuster and chastised Republicans for “the grotesque claim that Estrada is being blocked because he is Hispanic.”

But of course, that was why Democrats were filibustering Estrada. In November 2001, as Democrats debated whether to undertake an unprecedented filibuster of President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, liberal groups met with Senate Democrats.

But the path to the light was lit by Senator Barack Obama. Obama finds himself in an interesting situation. He is the first President in history to have called for a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee.

And he did indeed vote to filibuster Judge Samuel Alito.

In January 2006, then-Sen. Obama joined 24 colleagues in a futile effort led by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., to filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of now-Justice Samuel Alito.

On January 29, 2006, Mr. Obama told George Stephanopulos on “This Week” that he would “be supporting the filibuster because I think Judge Alito, in fact, is somebody who is contrary to core American values, not just liberal values, you know. When you look at his decisions in particular during times of war, we need a court that is independent and is going to provide some check on the executive branch, and he has not shown himself willing to do that repeatedly.”

Mr. Obama did seem to express some reserve about using the filibuster process, which in common parlance refers to a procedural Senate maneuver requiring 60 votes to end debate and proceed to a vote.

“I think that the Democrats have to do a much better job in making their case on these issues,” then-Sen. Obama said. “These last-minute efforts using procedural maneuvers inside the Beltway, I think, has been the wrong way of going about it, and we need to recognize because Judge Alito will be confirmed that if we’re going to oppose a nominee that we’ve got to persuade the American people that, in fact, their values are at stake and frankly I’m not sure that we’ve successfully done that.”

This is what the GOP should do- vote to filibuster Obama’s nominee. Any number of them. And for the same reason obama did it.

How could anyone argue with that? How could obama argue with it? It’s what he did. It’s completely fair to do the same. And before any of you lefties wail about it not stopping Alito, just save it. The intent was to stop the nomination. Obama and Kerry didn’t have the support they wanted.

Tough.

The GOP could and should. Senator obama’s blueprint is there. It’s all the justification the GOP needs. But take heart, lefties. With the possibility looming overhead like a vulture over a wounded rabbit, obama has decided he regrets doing what he did and wants others to learn from his action:

“As the president alluded to yesterday, he regrets the vote that he made, because, frankly, I mean, as we’ve discussed, Democrats should have been in a position where they were making a public case. That’s what Democrats should have done. And they shouldn’t have looked for a way to just throw sand in the gears of the process. And frankly, looking back on it, the president thinks he should have just followed his own advice.”

But as it says in the Bible, “As ye filibuster, so shall ye reap.”

DrJohn

DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.

DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.

Except for liberals being foolish.