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“Don’t bother me with the facts. My mind’s made up!” This pretty well sums up the thinking — or lack thereof — of the person who leads the United State Senate and is charged with reviewing nominations to the Supreme Court. From day one, and even before, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) told the President of the United States and the world we can do without a replacement for the late Antonin Scalia, who had the nerve to die before a new White House occupant could be elected, leaving what the Republican leader called a “Lame Duck” in office.
I searched the Constitution but could not find any mention of a “lame duck,” but did find the prescription for who should nominate someone for a SCOTUS vacancy, and who should consider the nominee for review and approval or disapproval. Yet it was Senator McConnell’s determination not only that President Obama have no business nominating anyone but that, were he to do so, McConnell and his partisans in the Senate majority would not even take the time to consider it, insisting such a heavy responsibility must be the job of whoever is elected by the people in November and sworn in in January, 2017. Meanwhile, the Kentucky power broker has accused our current commander-in-chief of escalating the conflict over the whole issue. Here, however, his memory has failed him seriously.
You see, when Republicans completed the power takeover of both chambers of Congress a while back, instead of celebrating their newly found chance to provide leadership to the nation in cooperation with the Obama White House, McConnell and Speaker Boehner announced only two real missions: to undermine the President and prevent him from gaining a second term and, second, to stall pretty much anything their Democrat opposites might offer.
They have done a good job of it so far. This pretty much laid the groundwork for any major nomination from 1600 Pennsylvania, reemphasizing another SCOTUS nomination, Sonya Sotomayor. The idea of “lame ducks-manship” really has never been the point at all, as I pointed out in a November 11, 2010 article on this site titled “Arrogance of Victory, Minus the Pride.”
Sure, harsh — sometimes even hateful — words are trotted out during campaigns of all kinds, but once the ballots are counted and the winners and losers announced, it is assumed that some dignity for the good of the order will return.
Unfortunately, that was not to be then or now, and it does not speak well for those given “leadership” titles of our current United States Senate. Once again, McConnell either shows need for memory care, or is simply and embarrassingly hung by his own petard.
What is further confusing is that this frustrated politician who demands the people help determine the Scalia replacement apparently has not considered that the White House may get another Democrat, and he and his friends will have to accept that reality as well.
As I also noted in that article several years ago, ultra-conservative icon Rush Limbaugh once gravely intoned “words mean things” when taking to task some target or other.
Indeed they do.
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Joe Honick is President of GMA International.
The ridiculously high prices Americans are paying at the supermarket might influence how—or if—they vote in November.
At a moment in history when there are so many conflicts among peoples here and abroad, let us put our differences aside and celebrate this wonderful season in a spirit of togetherness.
The news announcing the death of Henry Kissinger, the last of the prevaricating politicians and so-called statesmen who stole my future and that of thousands of other young Americans, got me thinking about Walter Cronkite.
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