"Interviews with more than a dozen Democratic senators revealed broad support for disrupting the Supreme Court confirmation process, even if the strategy yields some collateral damage."

"Yet Democrats facing tough reelections and those who typically spurn delay tactics overwhelmingly support the hardball campaign, potentially putting them at increased risk of losing their seats. 'We know that the votes are not there [to block the nominee], but you do what you can to call attention to it,' said Sen. Doug Jones (D-Ala.), the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent who could be pulled off the campaign trail as a result. 'The issue is that this is a power grab.'"

Politico reports.

The techniques are too boring to quote — Senate procedure stuff. Basically, delay tactics: "[I]f Schumer develops a cohesive strategy and has the support of the entire Senate Democratic Caucus, it could quickly become one of the most disruptive series of delay tactics in recent memory."

"Regardless of what you or I may think of the circumstances of this nomination, [Amy Coney] Barrett is highly qualified to serve on the Supreme Court."

"I disagree with much of her judicial philosophy and expect to disagree with many, maybe even most of her future votes and opinions. Yet despite this disagreement, I know her to be a brilliant and conscientious lawyer who will analyze and decide cases in good faith, applying the jurisprudential principles to which she is committed. Those are the basic criteria for being a good justice. Barrett meets and exceeds them. I got to know Barrett more than 20 years ago when we clerked at the Supreme Court during the 1998-99 term. Of the thirty-some clerks that year... Barrett stood out. Measured subjectively and unscientifically by pure legal acumen, she was one of the two strongest lawyers. The other was Jenny Martinez, now dean of the Stanford Law School. When assigned to work on an extremely complex, difficult case, especially one involving a hard-to-comprehend statutory scheme, I would first go to Barrett to explain it to me. Then I would go to Martinez to tell me what I should think about it."

Writes Harvard lawprof Noah Feldman (at Bloomberg). I don't really believe Feldman needed Barrett to explain anything or Martinez to know what to think. The discussion of the 2 women is not really about Feldman's help-seeking but about 2 different approaches to statutory interpretation. Barrett (clerking for Scalia) found the meaning in the text "without reference to legislative history or the aims and context of the statute," and  Martinez (clerking for Breyer) would "pragmatically engag[e] the question of what a statute is actually trying to do."

Feldman also vouches for Barrett's character:

To add to her merits, Barrett is a sincere, lovely person. I never heard her utter a word that wasn’t thoughtful and kind — including in the heat of real disagreement about important subjects. She will be an ideal colleague. I don’t really believe in “judicial temperament,” because some of the greatest justices were irascible, difficult and mercurial. But if you do believe in an ideal judicial temperament of calm and decorum, rest assured that Barrett has it.

Reading between the lines, I see a recommendation to the Democratic Senators that they adopt a temperament of calm and decorum — and not because civility is good but because incivility will bite them in the ass. I presume the sincere and lovely Amy will have her 7 children lined up right behind her. Feldman is trying to bestow permission on the Democratic Senators to be very kindly toward Barrett, even though the RBG mourners are screaming for blood.

ADDED: Maybe you, like me, were irritated by the phrase "what a statute is actually trying to do." A statute has no mind. It is not trying to do anything. Human beings have minds and they wrote the statute. What legislators were trying to do when they wrote it includes what they could have put in the text and did not. Their legitimate power does not extend to things they'd also want but neglected or chose not to put in the text that was voted on. Feldman makes it sound more sophisticated for a judge to supply what was left out of the text, but the Scalia position on that is that it's illegitimate for judges to enforce what they imagine the legislators were "actually trying to do."

"Trump Selects Amy Coney Barrett to Fill Ginsburg’s Seat on the Supreme Court."

The NYT reports.

Mr. Trump plans to announce on Saturday that she is his choice, according to people close to the process who asked not to be identified disclosing the decision in advance. The president met with Judge Barrett at the White House this week and came away impressed with a jurist that leading conservatives told him would be a female Antonin Scalia, referring to the justice who died in 2016 and for whom Judge Barrett clerked.

"Democrats worry Feinstein can't handle Supreme Court battle/Colleagues fear the oldest senator may struggle to lead Democrats on the Judiciary Committee."

Politico interviewed more than a dozen Democratic senators and aides" about Dianne Feinstein, 87, who might not be up to the challenge of leading the opposition to Trump's nominee.

A Democratic senator, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said a group of Feinstein’s colleagues want Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) or Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) to serve as the top Democrat on the Judiciary panel for the upcoming nomination hearings, which are expected to be extraordinarily contentious. This senator is worried that potential missteps by Feinstein could cost Democrats seats.

“She’s not sure what she’s doing,” the Democratic senator said of Feinstein. “If you take a look at Kavanaugh, we may be short two senators because of that. And if this gets [messed] up, it may be the same result. I think it could impact a number of seats we can win,” the senator added.

Another Democratic senator said party leaders were “in an impossible position,” pointing out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y) and other senior Democrats can’t replace a female senator for hearings on an expected female nominee to replace a deceased female Supreme Court justice....

A third Democratic senator put it this way: “She can’t pull this off.”...

ADDED: "Pull off" is a funny phrase. I looked it up in the OED. It has many meanings that are not at all what the third Democratic Senator meant. For example, in U.S. slang, it means "To steal, esp. by picking a pocket":

1883 ‘M. Twain’ Life on Mississippi lii. 511 I pulled off an old woman's leather; (robbed her of her pocket-book).

And it means, in "coarse slang," "To masturbate (a man); to cause (a man) to ejaculate by masturbation":

1909 J. Joyce Let. 8 Dec. in Sel. Lett. (1975) 184 I pulled myself off twice when I read your letter. I am delighted to see that you do like being fucked arseways.
1922 J. Joyce Ulysses iii. xviii. [Penelope] 711 How did we finish it off yes O yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to be excited.

I'm using high prestige authors to illustrate the lowly meanings.

But the perfectly appropriate meaning is "To succeed in accomplishing, achieving, or producing (something); to carry off." Not necessarily some sort of sneaky caper!

1923 H. G. Wells Men like Gods i. i. 6 He was not really clever enough to pull such a thing off.
1960 ‘Miss Read’ Fresh from Country (1962) xviii. 197 ‘And good luck to the old girl, say I!’ continued Joan warmly... ‘Let's hope she pulls it off!’

"Now I’m asking sleepy Joe Biden to give me a list and he doesn’t want to do it. You know why? "

"Because he can only put super radical left judges on, people that would destroy our country, people that would destroy your country. And he knows that he’s not electable… He shouldn’t be electable anyway. This is the worst candidate. You know where he is today? They have a thing called the LID. I don’t even know. Do you know what LID stands for? LID. He put out a LID today early in the morning. LID means he’s not going to be anywhere today. I’m working my ass off, I’m in Ohio, I’m in Texas, I’m in Florida, I’m in Michigan, I’m in Wisconsin. [CROWD CHANTS: 'We love you.'] Man. Thank you. That’s so nice. Well, that is something that one of the fake news reporters back there, they said they’ve never heard of that one.... That’s never happened to a politician before. Am I a politician? I don’t want to be a politician. I don’t think of myself as a politician. But it really is, I appreciate it. I’ve never heard it. I liked Ronald Reagan, but they never said we love you, or maybe they did. They’re going to try and find out. Then they’ll say, 'President Trump lied last night because 40 years ago I remember…' But no, nobody’s ever heard that one before and I appreciate it because it is reciprocal. Thank you very much. Reciprocal. Reciprocal love. It’s reciprocal. I had such a nice life before I did this. I had such a nice life...."

From "Donald Trump Pittsburgh Campaign Rally Transcript September 22."

David Lat assesses the odds on the various candidates for the Supreme Court nomination.

At Above the Law.

He gives Amy Coney Barrett 50-50 odds:

Trump has wasted no time in meeting with Barrett, who made her way to the White House and met with the president [on Sept. 21]. According to the New York Times, Trump “spent much of the day with her and later told associates that he liked her, according to people close to the process, who considered her increasingly likely to be the pick.”

(One wonders whether having them spend so much time together was an attempt by Barrett backers to get Trump more comfortable with her. At their prior interview back in 2018, the thrice-married, not-very-religious Manhattan billionaire and the devoutly Catholic, midwestern mother of seven reportedly lacked “chemistry,” concluding their conversation before their allotted time was up.)

The NYT's Frank Bruni says Trump replacing RBG will put us in "a special hell" — because the Court "won’t represent what most Americans believe."

He says those words — "won’t represent" — and he must immediately back and fill. He knows it's not right, but... but what?!

Sure, the court isn’t supposed to be beholden to public opinion, but...

But what?!!!

... Americans’ faith in their institutions and feeling that their voices are heard might be strained even further by what seem to be lurches backward by a court forged in the hottest flares of partisan passion.

Reread that. I love the way the word "strained" appears in the most strained sentence I've read all year. I mean really read. Mostly when I encounter strained prose, I'm disgusted and find something else to consume.

But I get sucked into this crazy sentence. It's full of colorful words but mind-bending if you try to picture what's going on. Let's see. Faith and feeling... might be strained... by lurches backward. Lurches backward might strain faith and feeling. And then there's a forge... so the Court is likened to metalwork of some kind.... yet it's capable of lurching. Backwards! Seemingly....

Bruni goes on to list questions of law that the new Court "could well" revisit — abortion, gay rights, voting rights, affirmative action. He presents this as a problem because the President who appointed the new justices doesn't have "deep-seated convictions" — or "a genuinely felt vision" — like some idealized liberal President who aspires to use the Supreme Court to achieve advances that are traditionally the work of legislatures. Bruni characterizes Trump as "the most brazen of opportunists" because he'd pick a nominee that would win him favor from voters.

That is, Bruni first complained that the Court won't be "representative" of Americans, then complained that Trump would not advance his personal political preferences but would think about what voters want. I suspect that Bruni's real point is that the Court ought to be political and liberal.



This picture of Hell is a detail from a fresco in a church in Bulgaria — found at the Wikipedia article "Hell." I chose it because of Bruni's "Hell" metaphor and his phrase "forged in the hottest flares of partisan passion" and because of the scales of justice in the upper left-hand corner.

"Granted that most of the mythologizing came later, but for RBG to decide she was indispensable in 2013-14, when there was a Democratic President and Democratic Senate majority..."

"... that could have replaced her with another liberal, was a cosmic misjudgment. (As de Gaulle is supposed to have remarked, the cemeteries are full of indispensable people.) Self-confidence is fine and good, and in her case it was fully justified. But to imagine that through sheer will power you can endlessly defy age and illness is hubris, and we know from the Greeks, hubris invites nemesis — now in the form of a court that will pick apart and discard half her legacy. This is the tragedy we are now facing."

That's one of the most highly rated comments at "Why Ruth Bader Ginsburg Refused to Step Down/She could have had President Obama nominate her successor. But she didn’t get to the Supreme Court by letting other people tell her what she could do" by Emily Bazelon (NYT).

By the way: "Mitt Romney Supports Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg Before the Election/Republicans are now almost guaranteed enough votes to replace the late justice before Nov. 3" (Buzzfeed). Romney offered what has become the stock GOP explanation: "The historical precedent of election year nominations is that the Senate generally does not confirm an opposing party’s nominee but does confirm a nominee of its own."

Nemesis ("In ancient Greek religion, Nemesis... is the goddess who enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods)"):

How Joe Biden can make Barack Obama President again.

I invite Joe Biden to pledge to follow this pathway to putting Barack Obama back in the White House. By pledging, he may improve his chance of getting elected. Who knows? The Ruth Bader Ginsburg Dying Wish must come true. The vacancy on the Supreme Court must remain open. I won't spend time on that step, because that's what everyone's already talking about. So let's jump forward to the new things:

First, President Joe Biden nominates Vice President Kamala Harris for the Supreme Court. He pledged to pick a black woman. Pledge kept. Now, he has the distinction of choosing not only the first black woman for the Court but also the first Asian person.

The choice would also meet a long-discussed goal of putting someone with political experience on the Court. This is something Bill Clinton wanted to do. In reminiscing — just a few days ago — about his choice of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he openly talked about his original preference for someone political (specifically Mario Cuomo). Trump has shown the same interest when he put Ted Cruz and Tom Cotton on his Supreme Court list.

When Harris is confirmed, she will resign from the vice presidency, which will give President Biden the power to appoint the new Vice President. He can pick Barack Obama. Then all Biden needs to do is resign. He's feeling too elderly to serve. Oops! Thought I could do it, but turns out I'm getting weaker by the day. Whatever. Or don't even surprise us. Tell us now that you'll follow this path. Then, when you resign, you'll just be doing what you promised, keeping your pledge.

And don't tell me Barack Obama is term-limited. As Supreme Court nominees like to say, you read the text and you say what it means, not what you wish it would mean. Here's the text of the 22nd Amendment: "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice...." There's no point in this scheme where Barack Obama is elected to the office of the President more than twice. He's appointed Vice President, and he assumes the presidency not by another election but by the resignation of President Biden.

ADDED: Meade is accusing me of "energizing Trumpers." Hmm. Do you think so?

IN THE COMMENTS: tcrosse asks "What's in it for Obama?" Well, for one thing, he gets to appoint the next Vice President. And then he's free to resign whenever it works best for him — so that he will have appointed the next President! He can restore what will be proclaimed "civility." Make us feel like we're good people again. Pat us on the head for behaving better. Make concerts in the White House great again. Pose with world leaders. Win another Nobel Prize.

ALSO: tcrosse's comment had more to it: "What's in it for Obama? It might get him off the hook for the huge advance he got for the book he has yet to produce." And the really cool thing is, then Obama could win the Nobel Prize for Literature! He won the Nobel Peace Prize without doing anything for it. He should win the Nobel Prize for Literature for figuring out the most high-flown, brilliant way of NOT writing a book. Conceptual art, blah blah blah. Stunning!!!

If Barbara Lagoa is Trump's pick for the Supreme Court, it will forefront a subject that roiled the presidential election in 2000 — Elian Gonzalez.

I'm reading "Lagoa’s Role in Florida Will Be a Big Factor in Trump’s Supreme Court Pick/Judge Barbara Lagoa lacks some of the usual credentials of a Supreme Court justice, but her roots in the Cuban-American community could make her an attractive choice for President Trump" (NYT).

Ms. Lagoa represented a relative of a 5-year-old boy found off the Florida coast after his mother had drowned trying to cross over from Cuba. His name was Elián González. Federal agents would eventually seize Elián and return him to his father in Cuba, setting off political shock waves that arguably cost former Vice President Al Gore the 2000 presidential election when he lost Florida.

“After six months, countless briefs, a few all-nighters, two oral arguments and one midnight raid by armed commandos, we learned what it was like to lose,” Eliot Pedrosa, another lawyer on the team, said at a ceremony last year when Judge Lagoa joined the Florida Supreme Court. The experience of “watching armed federal agents use force to pre-empt process,” he said, was “seared into her soul.”...

The Cuban-American community admired her work on Elián’s case, taking issue with the federal government’s position that the boy’s father, Juan Miguel González, was his sole legal guardian and had the right to make the decision to have him returned to Cuba. Also playing a role was a young lawyer named Brett M. Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice himself, who represented the boy’s Miami relatives when they needed someone to work on a federal appeal....

Here's a March 10, 2000 NYT article that mentions Lagoa, "Federal Judge Fails to Rule On Fate of Cuban Youngster":

"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in repose at the Supreme Court on Wednesday and Thursday and lie in state Friday at the Capitol before President Trump is expected to nominate a replacement."

"During a television appearance Monday, Trump said he would probably announce his nominee Friday or Saturday, which he said would leave 'plenty of time' for a Senate confirmation vote before Election Day."

WaPo reports.

And: "President Trump on Monday said he has narrowed his list of potential Supreme Court nominees to fill the seat held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to five people" (Fox News): "The president’s shortlist is said to include Judge Amy Coney Barrett from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Judge Barbara Logoa of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and Judge Allison Jones Rushing of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, among others."

Isn't it crazy how this story has overshadowed everything else in the news — the coronavirus, the protest/riots, whatever the hell was in Woodward's book, the forest fires...?

Instead of Trump getting excoriated for being terrifyingly strange, he enters the last lap toward Election Day in his area of greatest normality — a President filling a Supreme Court vacancy with a stellar individual who manifests all the conventional attributes of a first-class judge.

Replacing Justice Ginsburg — an assortment of tweets.

Yes, we should probably turn over the appointment of a Supreme Court justice, whose job it is to uphold the Constitution, to a group of people threatening to pack the court, impeach for pure politics, and add states willy-nilly. Can't see the downside.

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 21, 2020

Morning shows conveniently ignored these clips today... pic.twitter.com/kSDaRiER4D

— Jason Miller (@JasonMillerinDC) September 21, 2020

Mr. President, this is low. Even for you.

No, I didn’t write Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dying wish to a nation she served so well, and spent her whole life making a more perfect union.

But I am going to fight like hell to make it come true.

No confirmation before inauguration. https://t.co/QgwPCUK5n7

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) September 21, 2020

“Boy, y’all want power. God, I hope you never get it.” pic.twitter.com/HEXjR7cpU6

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) September 21, 2020

"All the hysteria about a Ginsburg replacement stems from the fact that our political system is dominated by an allegedly nonpolitical Court that actually decides many political issues."

"And that Court is small (enough so that a single retirement can throw things into disarray) and unrepresentative of America at large. In an earlier article, responding to Democrats’ plans to 'pack' the Court with several additional justices whenever they get control back, I suggested going a step further, and add fifty new justices, one each to be appointed by every states' governor.... Under my proposal, the death or retirement of a single justice wouldn’t be much more than a blip in the news, instead of something serious enough that there are people talking about violence in the streets. A Supreme Court composed of 59 justices wouldn’t have the mystique of the current Court — you might believe in 9 Platonic Guardians, but the notion of 59 such is absurd. And since governors would presumably select people from their own states, it would bring a substantial increase in diversity to the Court."

Writes Glenn Reynolds at USA Today.

Do you want your political power raw or cooked?

I'm reading "Joe Biden Philadelphia Speech Transcript Sept. 20: Accuses Trump & Republicans of Abuse of Power Over SCOTUS." Joe went to Philadelphia again to read from the teleprompter. I assume he goes to Philadelphia because it's so close to Wilmington, Delaware. Anyway... I was interested in his discussion of filling the vacancy on the Supreme Court:

This appointment isn’t about the past. It’s about the future, and the people of this nation, and the people of this nation are choosing their future right now, as they vote. To jam this nomination through the Senate is just an exercise in raw political power, and I don’t believe that the people of this nation will stand for it. President Trump has already made it clear, this is about power, pure and simple power.

Of course, it's about power — the appointment and the election... and the last election. Joe Biden wants that power — the power of the presidency, which he would like to include the power to appoint the successor to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But he can't get that power unless Donald Trump, for some reason, decides to abstain from the exercise of raw political power that is served up on a plate right there on his table.

Whether the voters should make it clear on this issue and so many others, the power in this nation resides with them, the American people, the voters....

It resided with them in 2016 and they exercised it. Now, it resides with the President until his term is up. That's the raw power answer, and raw power is power. The sushi is on the table. But maybe you can persuade the ravenous diner to pass up this meal. Maybe this power would be better cooked.

... and even if President Trump wants to put forward a name now, the Senate should not act until after the American people select their next president, their next Congress, their next Senate. If Donald Trump wins the election, then the Senate should move on his selection and weigh the nominee he chooses fairly. But if I win this election, President Trump’s nominee should be withdrawn....

But why?! If he loses the election, why would he take back what he's already done? If the Senate is about to be handed over to the Democrats in January, why wouldn't the GOP Senate majority feast on their last meal and confirm Trump's nominee? It's still raw power! Biden can only hope to convince them to walk away from the raw-power table and let things stew until late January.

... and as a new president I should be the one who nominates Justice Ginsburg’s successor....

I should be the one! That's what all seekers of power are always saying: I should be the one!

If Trump nominates Barbara Lagoa to replace RBG, will Democrats make the "second Latina" argument? I see 2 big problems!

"An effort to install a second Latina on the high court would immediately raise the stakes of a nomination fight that quickly became a clash over principles of fairness and democratic legitimacy."

I just wanted to isolate that sentence, which appears in the middle of a Washington Post article by Isaac Stanley-Becker and Aaron C. Davis and called "Barbara Lagoa, Cuban American judge, rises on Trump’s Supreme Court list as allies emphasize Florida campaign edge."

First, I see that word "install," which I blogged about at length when we saw it in the text of Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dying wish: "My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed."

As I explained at the time, "install" was not the normal word to use in the context of a new American President taking office. I won't be surprised to see a sudden vogue for "install." I'll be watching.

But that's not my motivation for writing this post. I want to talk about "a second Latina." Is this the incipient attack on Lagoa? We already have a Latina on the Court, so Trump, in a ham-handed attempt to do diversity, has failed! He would grossly over-represent Latinas on the Court!

Is that the attack they'd use or that they're testing right now or pretending that they'd use in order to scare Trump away from what would, in fact, be an excellent choice?

There are 2 big problems with the "second Latina" argument.

1. The "first Latina" is Sonia Sotomayor, who was born in the Bronx to parents who were born in Puerto Rico. Barbara Lagoa was born in Miami to parents who fled Cuba. You can group them together under the word "Latina," but if you care about diversity, you shouldn't be arguing that the proposed "second Latina" is just a repeat of an ethnicity already represented on the Court.

2. The "second Latina" argument radically exposes the problem with choosing people because of their ethnicity. You're saying just get one and then you've covered that group and you don't need another. This idea limits opportunities for those in the groups that you've posed as caring about. You're saying: We've got our Latina, so we don't need another; we can get back to hiring the type of person we always preferred.

I don't know if Trump will pick Barbara Lagoa, but I'll be very interested to see if Democrats unleash the "second Latina" argument. It's dangerous, and it should go horribly wrong.

"They’re now saying, after Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away, they said, 'Biden should release his list.'"

"It’s no wonder the Trump campaign asked that I release the list only after she passed away. It’s a game for them. It’s a play to [inaudible] up emotions and anger. There’s a reason why no presidential candidate, other than Donald Trump, has ever done such a thing. First, putting a judge’s name on a list like that could influence that person’s decision making as a judge, and that would be wrong, or at least create the perception that it would have influence. Second, anyone put on a list like that under these circumstances will be subject to unrelenting political attacks. Because any nominee I would select would not get a hearing until 2021 at the earliest, she would endure those attacks for months on end, without being able to defend herself. Thirdly, and finally, perhaps most importantly, if I win, I’ll make my choice for the Supreme Court not based on a partisan election campaign, but on what prior presidents have done, Republican and Democrats, and I’ve served with many of them. Only after consulting Democrats and Republicans in the United States Senate and seeking their advice and asking for the consent, it says, 'Advice and consent of the Senate,' the president is the person who gets to name someone, propose. The Senate deposes. As everyone knows, I made it clear that my first choice for the Supreme Court will make history as the first African American woman justice. But I’ll consult with senators in both parties about that pick, as well as the legal and civil leaders in our country...."

From Joe Biden Philadelphia Speech Transcript Sept. 20.

Oh? I'd forgotten that he'd pledged to choose a black woman. Isn't that inconsistent with his 3 reasons for not giving us a list? There can't be that many potential choices if he's got the type of person narrowed down like that. Who are the under-60 black female federal judges appointed by Democratic Presidents? Won't they all be influenced in their decisions — reason #1, above — even though their names are not on a list? Aren't they all just as vulnerable to "unrelenting political attacks" as the individuals on Trump's list (reason #2)? And are you not violating reason #3 by making this pledge? You are trying to gain favor in a partisan election campaign, and when it's over, you'll be locked into that limitation and not able to make the sober, nonpolitical analysis you want us to think you will make. And isn't your pledge to appoint a black woman — just a black woman, not the person with the greatest skill and integrity — more political than Trump's list of real people, whose skill and integrity we can investigate? And by the way, if you are really so concerned about tormenting judicial candidates with with unrelenting political attacks, why did you participate in the mistreatment of Bret Kavanaugh?

ADDED: No presidential candidate, other than Donald Trump, has ever done such a thing.... Yes, Trump innovated, but it was Trump, so, of course Orange Man Bad. But it was a good innovation for him, because he wanted to build confidence that he would indeed choose a principled conservative. Now, that the innovation has been done, other candidates will decide whether it suits them. It will suit some, but not others. And, clearly, it would not suit Biden. Biden can't possibly present a list of names. There would be "unrelenting political attacks" on him. There's no way he can provide names that will be far enough left to avoid attacks from the left. If he even attempts to give the left some satisfaction, moderates will be upset. It will further aggravate the suspicion that he's going to let the lefties push him around.

I watched the Sunday morning shows — 4 of them! — after shunning them for years, and I can boil them down for you.

The most interesting thing was this bizarre malfunction from Nancy Pelosi:



The boil-down is easy: Replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a completely political event, where there are constitutionally defined powers that will be exercised to their utmost. Nothing more is needed, and nothing can be done about it, and each party will do what the other party would do if the roles were reversed. And that's the same thing they did in 2016 after Justice Scalia died.

Good morning! Sunday morning! See ya!

"If you are between the ages of 18 and 29, I mean hell, even a little bit older. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 35, 40, you have the ability to turn the outcome of this election. Period. Period."

I mean, hell! I'm about to turn 70. My son is about to turn 40. My son is in her I-mean-hell zone. He barely counts anymore. Too old! Oldies step aside. The young ones are taking over, and they know what's what. Period. Period. Period.

And by "her," I mean Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, from "AOC Speech Transcript on RBG Death & What Democrats Should Do Next."

People say, “Oh my gosh, why is everyone in our government so old?” I don’t want to be ageist or anything like that, but we want a government that’s diverse....

So get out and vote for 77-year-old Joe Biden. Old white man Joe. It's your only choice. For diversity!

... I understand why people say, “I don’t vote. What’s the point?” I really empathize with it. I’m not here to dismiss you. I’m not here to poo-poo you. I’m not here to say you’re wrong or that you’re a bad person. What I’m here to say is that this year, this election, voting for Joe Biden is not about whether you agree with him. It’s a vote to let our democracy live another day. That’s what this is about....

You  have no choice.

"Having Barrett replace Ginsberg because they are women is like having Clarence Thomas replace Thurgood Marshall because they're black."

Top-rated comment on "Who is Amy Coney Barrett, the judge at the top of Trump’s list to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg?" (WaPo).

From the article:

A devout Catholic who is fervently antiabortion, Barrett appeals to Trump’s conservative base. But Republicans also hope that for moderates such as Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), her gender makes her a more palatable replacement for Ginsburg, a feminist icon who spent her life fighting for gender equality....

Trump first nominated Barrett to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in 2017. Previously, she’d taught law at the University of Notre Dame for 15 years, so she had no previous judicial record to scrutinize. Democrats balked at her nomination, questioning whether the academic could be an impartial arbiter because of her deep religious convictions. Republicans accused Democrats of applying a religious test in their questioning.

That links to a September 7, 2017 WaPo article "Did Dianne Feinstein accuse a judicial nominee of being too Christian?"

Amy Barrett... has spoken often of her Catholic faith and drawn opposition from liberal groups, which argue that she'd place it above the law. Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, echoed those concerns Wednesday at a confirmation hearing, telling Barrett that “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that's of concern …”

I blogged about that at the time, here. Excerpt:

Is "dogma" a dog whistle, expressive of anti-Catholic bias or does it aptly characterize a person with fixed beliefs that interfere with understanding law in a properly judicial way?... We're being asked to rely on the decisions that will come from the mind of this nominee. That mind must be tested, and it can't be tested enough. There are all sorts of biases and disabilities within any human mind, and the hearings can do very little to expose the limitations of an intelligent, well-prepared nominee....

A nominee with a mind entirely devoted to religion and intending to use her position as a judge to further the principles of her religion should be voted down just like a candidate who revealed that he'd go by "what decision in a case was most likely to advance the cause of socialism."

I'd like to think that a religious person has a strong moral core that would preclude that kind of dishonesty, but we're not required to give religious nominees a pass and presume they're more honest than nominees who are not religious devotees. That would be religious discrimination!

ADDED: Is it too late to be annoyed by the use of "they" in the quote in the post title? Also let me remind you of what Thurgood Thurgood Marshall said as he was retiring from the Court, before Clarence Thomas was nominated:

Q: Do you think President Bush has any kind of an obligation to name a minority justice in your place?

Thurgood Marshall: What?

Q: Do you think President Bush has any kind of an obligation to name a minority candidate for your job?

Thurgood Marshall: I don't think that that should be a ploy, and I don't think it should be used as an excuse one way or the other.

Q: An excuse for what, Justice?

Thurgood Marshall: Doing wrong. I mean for picking the wrong Negro and saying "I'm picking him because he is a Negro." I am opposed to that. My dad told me way back that you can't use race. For example, there's no difference between a white snake and black snake, they'll both bite. So I don't want to use race as an excuse.

A new Marquette poll shows strong support for holding hearings on the new Supreme Court nominee — and the support is highest among independents.

And there's a strong majority for holding hearings even among Democrats!



A majority in all 3 groups also say it was wrong not to have held hearings on Merrick Garland.

ADDED: "The survey was conducted Sept. 8-15, 2020, interviewing 1,523 adults nationwide, with a margin of error of +/-3.6 percentage points." That is, oddly enough, the poll was taken in the week before Justice Ginsburg died.