Why Merrick Garland Was a Brilliant Tactical Move

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Obama's vote total was the second most votes received in the history of presidential elections and the most ever for a reelected president. Obama owns the all-time record for votes in a single election as well in 2008.

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Of course, the president could've nominated Lin-Manuel Miranda, Zombie Louis Brandeis, Oliver Wendell Whitebread, or Trigger and got the same reaction.

"My view is we should not be confirming somebody during this presidential election cycle. I mean, we're already well into the presidential campaign, it's the last year of the Obama presidency. I think it would be better to have the people play a role here, you know, give the people a voice in this by saying, 'OK, let's make this a part of this presidential campaign. I think that's the better thing for the country right now. If you did it this year, it would be ugly."

And that was reasonable, moderate Rob Portman of Ohio, spouting gibberish. Wait until some of the real stars of the carny midway get going. Wait until the outlying precincts check in.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is just chockful of wingnutty goodness; Tailgunner Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, the konztitooshunal skolar from Utah, are both members. Lee took to the Twitter machine to explain why he'll be taking the summer off from doing one of his only jobs.

And, of course, the Republican presidential frontrunner, who wouldn't know Merrick Garland if he sat in his lap, and doesn't know enough about constitutional government to feed to the fish, had some thought-like sentiments he'd like to share.

"I think the next president should make the pick, and I think they shouldn't go forward, and I believe I'm pretty much in line with what the Republicans are saying."

Why? Because he's Trump and you're not, loser.

They're in a tough spot. Merrick Garland is an almost universally respected jurist who no less than Orrin Hatch has praised fulsomely on a number of different occasions. In fact, it can be argued that the president flipped the script on Hatch. Oh, Merrick Garland is somebody for whom you could vote? Cool beans, O.H. I happen to have Merrick Garland right here.

Mr. Obama demanded a fair hearing for Judge Garland and said that refusing to even consider his nomination would provoke "an endless cycle of more tit for tat" that would undermine the democratic process for years to come. "I simply ask Republicans in the Senate to give him a fair hearing, and then an up or down vote," Mr. Obama said. "If you don't, then it will not only be an abdication of the Senate's constitutional duty, it will indicate a process for nominating and confirming judges that is beyond repair."

So it's a masterpiece of trolling from a guy who's become very, very good at that. I understand the frustration of the president's progressive supporters at the idea of a 60-ish white guy replacing a 70-ish dead white guy on the Supreme Court. (I would've preferred Jane Kelly from the Eighth Circuit, who already had heads exploding.) I'm sure there were several dozen more diverse, and clearly no-more-fcks-to-give, choices he could've made.

But Garland's work as a supervising DOJ attorney in the Oklahoma City bombing case intrigues me, and it is likely to light up the far distant precincts of wingnuttia as well.

At the very least, he's aware of the wildness loose in the country. He seems moderate and judicious and very unlikely to stray too far out of bounds from what this president and his supporters think a Supreme Court justice should be.

His opinions on the appellate rights of criminal defendants could use some work, but he's not likely to join with the likes of Samuel Alito to take an ax to things like the Miranda decision. He's not a law'n'order guy. Tom Goldstein of the invaluable SCOTUSBlog put together a solid compendium of Garland's record the last time his name arose to fill a vacancy on the Court, when Garland was passed over in favor of Justice Elena Kagan.

All of which is, for the moment, anyway, moot. This is a purely tactical move, and it's an awfully good one. Right now, Republican senators are saying that they won't even take one-on-one meetings with the guy, let alone give him a committee vote, let alone give him a confirmation vote in the Senate.

This was precisely the reaction the president was hoping for, although he didn't exactly have to be Nostradamus to make this play. But I want to know more about this comic book collection.

"[SCOTUS nominee Merrick Garland] put himself through Harvard Law School by working as a tutor, by stocking shoes in a shoe store, and in what is always a painful moment for any young man, by selling his comic book collection," Obama said. "It's tough. [I've] been there."

Hey, at least Garland cashed in. My mother threw all of mine out when I went away to college. I coulda been somebody. I coulda had class. I coulda had a cool robe and a lifetime job.

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