in Congress, Legal Scoops, Politics, Trump Administration

TANTRUM: New York Times Still Irate Over Obama’s Supreme Court Pick

by Andrew July 2, 2017, 6:34 pm 593 Comments

The New York Times editorial board is still fuming over Neil Gorsuch’s ascent to the Supreme Court. Their fury reached a boiling point last week as Justice Gorsuch finally weighed in on some of his first decisions, but the editorial board apparently lacked the composure to actually argue against the merits of his first conservative rulings. Instead, they went back to the dead horse known as Merrick Garland and decided to beat it a few more times out of pure liberal rage.

“Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, has had a rough couple of weeks,” they wrote. “Yet, however many setbacks he might suffer over health care reform or other parts of the Republican agenda, he knows he has already won the biggest fight of all: the theft of a Supreme Court seat from President Obama, the installation of Justice Neil Gorsuch and the preservation of the court’s conservative majority for years to come.”

We don’t agree with the language the editorial board uses in this paragraph, but we do concur on one thing: For whatever we might see as McConnell’s failings, he’s got a lifetime pass from us because of what he did last year by keeping Obama’s Supreme Court pick off the bench. That took an extraordinary amount of political courage and an extraordinary respect for the American people and their right to have a say in what was one of the most monumental selections in Supreme Court history. Can we defend McConnell’s stonewalling of Garland from every legal and political angle? Nope. But if you want to talk about the ends justifying the means, there’s no better example in recent American politics.

“The problem is that he’s sitting in the seat that by rights should be occupied by Judge Garland,” they whined. “Had Mr. Garland been confirmed, the court would have had a majority of Democratic-appointed justices for the first time in almost half a century.”

Yes, and it would have been a disaster for the country. But to call it Garland’s seat “by rights” is rather absurd. A judge does not automatically deserve a seat on the Supreme Court just because a president nominates them. They must go through a confirmation process, as the New York Times well knows. Garland did not. And the editorial board may have a problem with that, but guess what? If Obama deserved the pick because he was elected, then McConnell deserved to block it because he, too, was elected – along with the Senate’s Republican majority.

Secondly, let’s dispense with the idea that Obama ever intended Garland to be a serious nominee. He picked him precisely BECAUSE he knew there was no chance he was ever getting on the court. That’s why he picked a relatively middle-of-the-road judge instead of another hardcore leftist like Sonia Sotomayor. If Hillary Clinton had won in November, she would have been just as likely to go back to the well and pick someone else – someone much, much further to the left than Garland. This was a show pick all along, so let’s get serious here.

In any case, it’s done and over with. And let’s remember that payback has already been delivered, because Democrats refused to give Gorsuch a chance, as well. They forced McConnell to change the rules of the Senate instead, so they have nothing left to complain about.

For the 1358^th time, here’s a message to the New York Times and all liberals: You Lost – Get Over It!

TANTRUM: New York Times Still Irate Over Obama’s Supreme Court Pick

Written by Andrew

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