By Timothy Birdnow ——Bio and Archives--February 14, 2016
American Politics, News | CFP Comments | Reader Friendly | Subscribe | Email Us
" Remember that time when Republicans threatened to toss America into a catastrophic debt crisis if President Obama didn't agree to a long list of economic demands? Or when they shut down government because they were upset that millions of Americans were about to receive health insurance? The same brand of responsible governance that brought you these failures of government is about to take on the Supreme Court. Justice Antonin Scalia, the Court's most outspoken conservative, has died. His seat remains vacant, and the constitutional duty to name his successor falls to President Obama. Whoever Obama chooses, that person will likely give liberals a majority on the Supreme Court for the first time since the early days of the Nixon administration." [...] "It wasn't always this way. Indeed, it wasn't this way very recently. Seven years ago, President Obama named Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill a seat on the Supreme Court. Nine Republicans broke with their party to confirm Sotomayor. That's nothing to write home about, but it was a sign that there was a critical mass of Republicans who understood that presidential elections have consequences, and that the wheels of constitutional government must keep turning even if that means that individual lawmakers will not always get their way."How very short is the memory of liberals like Millhiser; he reminisces about the GOP rollover for Obama just a few years ago and fails to mention the litany of GOP nominations over the years that the Democrats torpedoed. Has he really forgotten Judge Robert Bork? His leftist buddies turned Bork's name into a verb, meaning to smear and destroy. Robert Bork was eminently qualified, so qualified that President Reagan did not feel compelled to hang around and defend him - and the media spin machine and their Democratic buddies went after Bork with great anger and furious wrath. In the end Bork was, well, borked. He withdrew his name from consideration.
"sufficient power to fill it will only drive home the political nature of the Court. It will also maximize the likelihood that a party that finally has the chance to fill vacant seats will stack the Court with party loyalists. Why risk appointing an independent thinker when you may not be able to fill another vacancy for years or decades to come? How the Senate responds to Scalia's vacancy, in other words, could decide whether the Supreme Court remains a viable player in our constitutional system. Why, after all, should a future president feel bound by the Court's decisions if they know that every member of its bench was appointed via a partisan knife fight?"Doesn't Millhiser remember Franklin Roosevelt stacking the Court? The Court was an is a political vessel, one the Democrats politicized long ago. And what does he mean "independent thinker"? Every Democratic nominee is the antithesis of independent thinker, moving in nearly unanimous lockstep on every decision. When has Kagan, or Ginsberg, ever written a separate opinion when the liberal side wins? It happens all the time among the conservative wing, but hardly ever on the liberal side. These justices are purely political animals, guaranteed votes to make straight the path of liberal triumphalism. Barack Obama and the Democrats have largely destroyed our Constitutional system, Millhiser. Funny you are worried about that now. In fact, SCOTUS has ruled that your savior Obama has overstepped his Constitutional authority 13 times now, with nary a peep out of you. If Obama gets his pick for the Court he will put in a yes man so he can exercise imperial power. Is that somehow Constitutional? And Obama has simply disregarded court orders when it suits him. See here. for an example. I don't believe Millhiser believes a word of that lying essay. He is simply trying to find a way to argue the inarguable. Were things reversed he would desperately be campaigning to deny, say, President Bush his pick. The hypocrisy is astounding.
View Comments
Timothy Birdnow is a conservative writer and blogger and lives in St. Louis Missouri. His work has appeared in many popular conservative publications including but not limited to The American Thinker, Pajamas Media, Intellectual Conservative and Orthodoxy Today. Tim is a featured contributor to American Daily Reviewand has appeared as a Guest Host on the Heading Right Radio Network. Tim’s website is tbirdnow.mee.nu.