Reject her, I dare you
MSNBC offers a predicted candidate for Scalia’s seat:
A leading Supreme Court analyst thinks Attorney General Loretta Lynch is the “most likely candidate” to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.
Tom Goldstein, who runs the influential SCOTUSblog, had earlier predicted Ninth Circuit Judge Paul Watford would make the top of President Obama’s short list. But in a revised blog post, Goldstein said he now believes Lynch is the leading contender.
Here’s the thing: she’s a career prosecutor, so the Republicans will look silly claiming she’s too squishy-liberal.
Lynch would be the first black woman ever nominated to the nation’s highest court — and the GOP would have a political problem during an election year if the Republicans refused to even consider her nomination, Goldstein wrote.
“I think the administration would relish the prospect of Republicans either refusing to give Lynch a vote or seeming to treat her unfairly in the confirmation process,” Goldstein wrote. “Either eventuality would motivate both black and women voters.”
I find this far more interesting than the election – no doubt because Obama is picking the candidates, so we don’t have to pay attention to people like Trump.
Besides the fact that (in my completely untrained non-lawyer mindset/opinion) Lynch would make a good SC justice, I would not put it at all past Obama to want to have a little fun watching this absurd GOP senate wind itself into knots coming up with reasons to either refuse to vote upon her nomination, or better yet, to refuse to confirm her.
I love it. I’ve long maintained that the nomination of Clarence Thomas was Bush 41’s political master stroke. If President Obama nominates Loretta Lynch, it could be his. I don’t see any downside. If approved, we have the first black woman on the highest court, if they turn her down, it looks really bad to all but the hardcore GOP base.
And “all but the GOP base” are exactly the demographic that the asshatted elephants are ignoring. For everyone who’s not a troglodyte conservative, Lynch’s nomination should be a pro forma affair; for the racist nativist white supremacist sexist asswipes who vote for people like Ted Cruz, it would be a non-starter. The party would be damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t. Now, whether such politicking is an appropriate way to select a lifetime appointment to the most influential nonumvirate in the world is a separate question. I’ve got no idea of Lynch’s record or her personal views in interpreting the US Constitution.
But, then again, I don’t live down there any longer, so I can just enjoy my schadenfreude from the chilly rain-swept Pacific Northwest until Hilary finds a way to lose to Ted Cruz and Canada gets taken over for our water and oil resources.