Did Mitchie the Kid take Chairman Grassley to the "messaging woodshed" over the past few days? Reiterating the Senate GOP's unflinching commitment to delay the installment of Antonin Scalia's successor to the next presidency (if, of course, there is one) in writing is an awfully bold step that makes a subsequent cave to leftwingnut pressure - which will be absolutely sulfuric - functionally impossible.
Isn't it?:
Rarely does a Supreme Court vacancy occur in the final year of a presidential term, and the Senate has not confirmed a nominee to fill a vacancy arising in such circumstances for the better part of a century. So the American people have a particular opportunity now to make their voice heard in the selection of Scalia’s successor as they participate in the process to select their next president — as they decide who[m] they trust to both lead the country and nominate the next Supreme Court justice. How often does someone from Ashland, Kentucky, or Zearing, Iowa, get to have such impact?
We don’t think the American people should be robbed of this unique opportunity. Democrats beg to differ. They’d rather the Senate simply push through yet another lifetime appointment by a president on his way out the door…
....God willing....
Indeed, this is the kind of logic that led more than two dozen Democrat senators — including Senators [G]Reid, Charles E. Schumer (New York), Patrick J. Leahy (Vermont) and then-senators Barack Obama (Illinois), Joe Biden (Delaware), John F. Kerry (Massachusetts) and Hillary Clinton (New York) — to vote to deny President George W. Bush’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, an up-or-down vote…
That was when Schumer, today the heir-apparent as Senate Democrat leader, gave a lengthy and stirring speech to the left-leaning American Constitution Society — eighteen months, or 1½ years, before the end of Bush’s term — in which he declared that the Senate “should reverse the presumption of confirmation” and “not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances.”
It should probably be noted that McConnell and Grassley use the word "should" all the way through this op-ed rather than "will" or "shall," so it's not quite as ironcladly declarative as it could have been. But that isn't anywhere near enough wriggle room to allow Senate Republicans to escape the electoral destruction that will ensue if they fulfill Dirty Harry's smug prediction.....
.....and that is what persuades me that they're serious about holding the line on any Obama nominee. They've proactively put their own careers - Grassley in particular - on the line to back it up. If they cave, their majority, and the Iowa senator's career, is history. And they know it.
In the words of Jean-Luc Picard....
....or else.
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