In an interesting piece over at The Daily Beast, Julian Zelizer posits that Gorsuch,
while eminently qualified to sit on the nation’s highest court, be Borked out of spite.
He begins with a fair amount of logic when he says:
“Given Gorsuch’s stellar professional record, his competence does not seem to be in question. At least from the leaked remarks about his meeting with Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal, he appears to have a healthy unease with President Trump’s aggressive statements about the judiciary.”
Fair enough, you say? Well, his hysteria just couldn’t be contained anymore a couple paragraphs later. He begins to bemoan that Trump didn’t send a “consensus pick” and that since he “lost the popular election by large numbers,” he should have nominated someone that Democrats would want to vote for rather than the right. Now, I’m sure that he might have a different view of what a “consensus pick is”, but I’d reckon that a voice vote that was essentially unanimous in 2006 with a dozen current Democrat Senators as well as the recent President, Vice President, and the last two Democrat-appointed Secretaries of State on the record as supporting comes pretty close to it.
So he wants Gorsuch to get “Borked”. He’s too conservative and its simply not fair that the Senate chose to abide by the Biden Rule, proposed in a fit in 1992 by then-Senator and recent Vice President Joe Biden in an effort to undermine the possibility of George HW Bush filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court that never materialized. It’s just not fair that one of the Justices furthest to the right be replaced by someone relatively far to the right when Obama would have put someone left of center on the bench.
Perhaps the Senate didn’t do their job last year. Perhaps Biden should have kept his mouth shut in 1992 and this never would have happened. And perhaps Democrats mailed it in in 2006. I won’t try to answer those questions here. But I have a hard time respecting someone that would call for an eminently-qualified jurist to be kept off the highest court in the land merely out of spite. It undermines the presidential prerogative to nominate judges to federal judgeships that has served us well for over 200 years.
Comments
57 responses to “The Daily Beast Proposes That Democrats Bork Gorsuch Because….Well, Basically Out Of Spite”
But Sessions gets through, no problem.
That’s because the Left was so busy with the “RACIST!!!” fits that the real issues with him were swept under the rug. See my Trump Derangement post from yesterday.
BFYTW.
+1 alt text
Wait, so you can see the alt-text? I can’t for some reason.
“I solemnly swear I’m about to get grilled”
The Dems would be stupid to go to the mattresses against Gorsuch. It would get them nuclear optioned, I think (never underestimate the craven spinelessness of Repub Senators). Trump set a trap for them with Gorsuch, especially since so many of the current Dem Senators voted for him to be an appeals judge, and he has done and said nothing since that would justify a no vote on a SCOTUS nominee.
The little bit I know about Gorsuch makes me reasonably happy – he’s a natural law guy, an originalist, he’s cast a few votes on cases that were good votes. Likely would be one of the better Justices from a libertarian perspective.
So, its the usual DC kabuki dance – are the Dems stupider than the Repubs are spineless?
I can not see any alt text.
*shrug*
So, its the usual DC kabuki dance – are the Dems stupider than the Repubs are spineless?
I’m gonna go with yes in this case. I think the elephants are starting to realize that their constituents have lost patience with them, too.
Donks are gonna throw a fit, Gorsuch is gonna get confirmed and more dems will lose seats in 2018.
Ugh.
Pretend I closed my fucking tags, please.
So, are we not doing threaded comments?
Asking for a friend.
Pretend I closed my fucking tags, please.
*said by Mrs. Tundra*
And Dr. ZG (Др. ЖГ)
Wait, so you can see the alt-text? I can’t for some reason.
I can’t either, sloop’ the only way I can read them is to R-click, then select, “view Image Info,” in Firefox.
Also, have we finally seen the Dearth Panel on Threaded Comments(tm)?
The threaded comments question is being mulled over as we speak.
Where are you guys on this: yea or nay on threaded comments?
THREADED COMMENTS!
And fix that wrong word I told you about!
RC, threaded comments will be back as soon as we find a solution that highlights them. Otherwise, the new comments are nearly impossible to find,
Maybe unthreaded until we get the site layout a little more compact.
I did.
I’m generally pro-threaded comments, but keeping the indentation minimal and some way to highlight new comments since the last time I checked in, would be teh awesome. Maybe even better than an edit button.
“But I have a hard time respecting someone that would call for an imminently-qualified jurist to be kept off the highest court in the land merely out of spite.”
Apparently not.
Thread’em.
Otherwise it really looks like we’re off our meds.
RC, threading is easy. Other bells and whistles aren’t and Mrs. OMWC has actual paying clients that need her time.
Where are you guys on this: yea or nay on threaded comments?
I am a devoted disciple of the Church of The Late P Brooks. I have always been at war with
EastasiaThreaded Comments(tm). Put me in the, “Kill Them With Fire,” camp. I’ll probably lose, but I guess that’s the way the ball bounces.Well, I did in the first paragraph.But they’re both fixed now.
I could be convinced either way, but lean to threaded. It helps with the comment conversation. I think there would have to be a limit for how many sub-replies; trying to read anything when the lines are only 3 characters is insufferable.
I vote threaded – my minimal brainpower is taxed enough with my el-crapo job.
I am available to help a little. I can certainly google wordpress shit and apply other people’s stuff. Just don’t ask me to make it look nice. Someone else will have to do that.
Off topic. I’m testing something.
Yes!
HAHA awesome. ok, how do I has?
Count me in the threaded camp. I remember in my early commenting days being the P Brooks camp, but I’m a bit lazy and it got to be a pain. My hat is off to P Brooks for continuing to eschew threaded comments.
We can post animated GIFs? Oh dear. I can see someone posting that NSFW GIF of Shay Laren bouncing.
And yet you didn’t.
Asshole.
I don’t see anybody doing anything that bad.
Off topic. I’m testing something.
Your Alt-Text, “a perfect representation,” doesn’t appear when I hover over it, sloop.
Otherwise, lemme try:
http://33.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m31xniCaC01rshnewo1_250.gif
I vote threaded comments, plz.
The livestream of the dam I’m watching just blamed climate change.
Climate change? Because of all the snow?
Shit, are we back on global cooling already? It’s so hard to keep up.
They didn’t make that emergency spillway strong enough, which is the climates fault.
Tundra,
Everyone knows that disasters from hot or cold or whatever are ALL the fault of Climate Change. Because floods never happened before we started raping Gaia.
Test:
Uh oh, we fucked up already…
Pretty impressive, actually. I would have put the over/under at about 20 minutes.
OK… I gotta test this too.
OK, test failed. What’s the secret? 🙂
The secret is to make a comment.
Then go back and edit the comment, opening up the goodies here. Click the img button and off you go…
The party of obstructionism still hasn’t figured out why they lost. Doubling down on the spite should fix things. They should try insulting the flyover country voters more. In other words needs more unfounded accusations of misogynism, racism, homophobia, fascism etc.
I can think of another bunch that stepped in a turn and then insisted on tracking it all over their house.
Pro-threaded comments here.
I’m less interested in the outrage-kabuki, they-did-it-first arguments than in the fact that Trump seems to be actually picking good Supreme Court nominees from the list he issued before the election, just like he promised conservatives.
Replacing Scalia is like running to stay in place – if you remember that part from Alice Through the Looking Glass. It won’t advance the court in the right direction, but stop it from sliding further into the “moderate” and “pragmatic” direction of imposing the cultural left’s agenda on the country in the guise of Constitutional interpretation.
Wait, we can edit comments?
Nobody tells me anything.
Is it possible that you have to be an official contributor to post images? It seems that random commenters have fewer… um… powers.
Is there not an edit link at the end of your name the date and time for each of your comments?
If that’s the case, I’ll take mine down. I don’t want to be a dick.*
*Although I might post sad Harbaugh photos from time to time.
Nope… can’t seem to edit either.
Oh. Well, shit. Maybe its a function of the site to keep our storage lowered. I’ll find out tonight and post my findings.
Please enjoy your gif superpowers! I like the variety…
Also, the comments seem to be numbered, except for yours. Other contributors get numbered comments as well, if they are commenting on someone else’s blog post, apparently.
Also, the comments seem to be numbered, except for yours.
Yes, the post author’s comment aren’t numbered on their discrete, published posts. Also, only contributors can edit their comments, it appears, as JW successfully edited his, but mere mortals cannot edit theirs.
I’ll find out tonight and post my findings.
Check your mail while you’re at it, sloop.-)
Dick pics already? You’re worse than Playa!
Dick pics already? You’re worse than Playa!
Dr. ZG *IS* a urologist/OBGYN, yanno, and her professional opinion is legion in the nether region.-) Besides, sloopy looms large.