Fred Weinberg: If Trump's Nominee Is Judicially Qualified, Who Cares What the Democrats Think?
The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week gives President Trump an opportunity to create a long-term legacy no matter who wins the 2020 election.
And it will also create a “profile in courage” moment in the United States Senate.
After years of RINO senators like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski worrying only about how their votes will affect them and their pathetic careers, we’re now in the position of watching them potentially trying to screw over the whole Republican Party as well as the nation.
Before they get started, let me suggest here and now that if they cannot vote to put a new justice on the bench today, they shouldn’t be senators.
There. Am I typing loud enough?
The question of the filibuster was settled years ago by Nevada’s own Harry Reid when he stood in the majority leader’s spot and wanted to be rid of the need to deal with the Republicans when it came to forcing appointments by Barack Obama through.
They made the rules; we can play by those rules, too.
Now, the Republicans have both the White House and the Senate. And an opportunity to reshape the court for perhaps two or three generations.
As long as the president’s nominee is judicially qualified, who cares what the Democrats think or threaten to do?
They threw everything from farce to feces at Brett Kavanaugh and yet he’s a sitting justice. They might have thought they were cute or meaningful, but they came off as disgusting to the electorate.
Let’s see them pull that kind of crap during the final month of an election campaign. Let’s see them sell that to the electorate.
And, let’s see them threaten to pack the court if they win the election.
That worked out pretty well for Franklin Roosevelt in 1937, didn’t it? If you never studied it in school (because they didn’t teach it), look it up.
So the only thing that can derail such an appointment would be losing four GOP senators. The weaklings are Collins, Murkowski and, yes, our man of the year, Mitt Romney.
Back when Robert Kennedy got elected senator from New York, Washington comic Tom Lehrer said, “Massachusetts is, after all, the only state with three senators.”
That still holds true today since the Mittster brought his rather unusual version of Republican “principles” to the Senate from Utah after serving as governor of Massachusetts.
Candidly, these folks have to know that there will be immediate consequences if they start worrying about their careers as opposed to their country. There are worse things than no longer being a senator. Like being ostracized. Having to make new friends. Democratic friends.
This is what the president meant when he talked of draining the swamp.
If, as a Republican senator, given the opportunity, you cannot vote to change the Supreme Court for the much, much better, than you deserve only the scorn of the nation.
And if your reason is as venal as protecting an office to which you were elected, then you should be ashamed of yourself.
If, on the other hand, you are willing to do what your party has been trying to get done for years, then you deserve unending praise.
Even in the unlikely event President Trump were to lose this election, getting a relatively young replacement for Justice Ginsburg confirmed would validate his legacy.
And you can be sure that if the situation were reversed, and Chuckie Schumer were Barack Obama’s majority leader and this were 2012, they would do it.
Republicans have a bad record when it comes to never blowing an opportunity to blow an opportunity.
Let’s not blow this one.
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