 |
| GARLAND: What will he become? |
There
has been a lot of rhetoric spouted about the suburban Lincolnwood native who
went on to bigger and better things once leaving the Chicago area.
MANY
OF OUR political people have been eager to attach themselves to his name. Both
of our state’s senators have publicly said Garland is qualified to be on the
nation’s high court.
That
even includes Mark Kirk, our state’s Republican senator whose own party leaders
are the ones heading up the effort to ensure that Garland never even gets a
hearing – let alone a vote – from the Senate with regards to his confirmation.
Even
Obama got into the act – on Thursday, he appeared at the University of Chicago
law school (where he once worked as an instructor while also serving in the
Illinois state Senate) to tout the merits of Garland.
As
though he thinks he can shame the leadership of Republicans desperately opposed
to the idea of letting this particular president have any more authority than
they’re willing to grant him.
WHICH
IS MY long-winded way of stating that they have no shame. They’re more than
stubborn enough to follow through with their threat to refuse to even hold
confirmation proceedings for Garland.
Probably
because they know that if legitimate hearings were held, Garland likely would
come across as judicial enough to impress the American public. The GOP’s
blatantly-partisan maneuvers would be exposed for what they are – a tacky
tactic meant to impose their own vision (rather than anything desired by the
public) on our society.
 |
| OBAMA: Touting Garland in Chicago |
So
what really becomes of Garland? What is the point of him enduring the upcoming
2016 and all the non-activity that will happen if, in the end, he’s not going
to actually get the post?
Is
Garland deluded enough to think that the partisanship of the Republican
caucuses in Congress can be cracked? Or does he merely like the idea of the
label of “Supreme Court nominee” attached to his name?
I’D
THINK AT the very least it becomes a little easier for him to get a quality
reservation these days at a restaurant within the District of Columbia.
Because
in future years, it’s always possible that people will struggle to remember the
name of “that guy” whom Obama tried to put on the Supreme Court. Or, as I’m
sure the Republican ideologues perceive it, had the arrogance to think he had
any right to nominate.
 |
| KIRK: Garland makes him less likely to lose? |
Who
does this president think he is, thinking he can fill three of nine vacancies
on the Supreme Court – just because all of them happened to occur during his
presidency?
I’ve
heard from some people who openly admit this fight is about ideology – the
Supreme Court must be dominated by people who have a conservative bent to the
way they perceive the law.
OTHERS
HAVE BROUGHT up the name of Robert Bork – the former Nixon administration aide
and appeals court judge whom then-President Ronald Reagan tried to nominate to
the Supreme Court in 1987, only to be rejected because his own ideological
leanings were so far to the right. They claim that GOP treatment of Garland is
merely payback for what Democrats did to Bork.
 |
| BORK: Got his hearing. Why not Garland? |
Which
is nonsense.
Bork
got hearings. He got the chance to state his case – which is something that
Garland will never get from the current Congressional leadership. And only the
hardest-core of ideologues remembers Bork -- the man who carried out Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre" of 1973 -- in any sort of sympathetic context.
It’s
creating a situation in which the name “Garland” will not be the lingering
memory come future years. It will be the Republican leadership whose inactivity
on this appointment will be among several facts that will create the “shame”
they will have to live down when their legacies are written.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment