President Barack Obama detailed the qualifications he’s looking for in a nominee to fill the seat of late Justice Antonin Scalia in a column for Supreme Court-watching website SCOTUSblog on Wednesday.
“Rulings handed down by the Supreme Court directly affect our economy, our security, our rights, and our daily lives,” Obama wrote. “Needless to say, this isn’t something I take lightly.”
Obama wrote that he’s looking for three qualities: “A sterling record. A deep respect for the judiciary’s role. An understanding of the way the world really works. That’s what I’m considering as I fulfill my constitutional duty to appoint a judge to our highest court.”
Obama sidestepped Republican senators who said they will not consider any nominee for the court’s vacancy on Tuesday. Instead, he encouraged the Senate to “fulfill their constitutional duty.”
“And as Senators prepare to fulfill their constitutional responsibility to consider the person I appoint, I hope they’ll move quickly to debate and then confirm this nominee so that the Court can continue to serve the American people at full strength,” he wrote.
Read the full column here.
The MSM have, for them, a heavy lift. Obama is pursuing his rightful constitutional duty and doing so without guile or rancor. The Senate Republicans are acting like spoiled children, stamping their feet and holding their breath and lashing out. The difference in the approach to due diligence and duty to the nation and constitution could not be more clear. The MSM has a big decision to make:
Do we approve overtime for the false equivalence specialists?
Obama is a class act.
I’m sure that R. Maddow will be all over this – how does she stay on the air? I hope John Oliver will be on this, too. And it would be nice if John Stewart would stand up and acknowledge that there simply are no responsible voices left among the GOP Senators.
This obstruction is infuriating. I’ve watched Grassley for years and from what I can tell he’s not a totally awful human being. However he constantly appears confused as if he hasn’t gotten word as to what his message should be, and in contrast to his aw-shucks midwestern image he’s shown himself all too happy to adopt extreme rhetoric (ie “Obamacare pulls the plug on gramma” in 09) when it suits him. This won’t dislodge him from his seat, in fact I fail to see how any national republican candidate will pay any price for this whatsoever while all major networks lead stories with how this is directly equivalent to things Democrats have done. It’s not, but it doesn’t seem like that’s going to matter. Infuriating.
A man I know just spoke (uh huh) from Washington, DC.
He smiled because I did not understand.
Then he held up a SCOTUS Justice you see.
He said it was the best in all the land.
And I said no no no no,
I don’t govern no mo’.
I’m tired of taking work to the floor.
No thank you please
You go to hell and then freeze.
I bet the voters won’t show me the door.
Credit to Hoyt Axton.
Anybody who can rewrite Ringo Starr songs
on short notice is aces in my book.