The situation has never happen before, until now. How do you determine that someone isn't qualified without actually doing the job to vet the candidate? Congress said I won't allow anyone. Congress didn't said I won't allow someone that is not qualified. One is obstruction, the other is check and balance to ensure qualified candidate.
This is an unfortunate reality that I accepted long ago. The fact that it's gotten to such a point is unfathomable, but here we are.
Do you really believe that the ONLY way they can know anything about him is via a formal hearing? C'mon, you know better. Congress isn't going to accept a liberal justice to sway the court to the left. It would have taken a true moderate to even get a vote but the president wasn't ever going to do that. Again, your partisanship is showing and it's unsightly. There's literally no reason for congress to give a SCOTUS justice nominee a hearing right now, the ONLY way it was going to happen was if the president nominated someone moderate enough to entice congress to go forward. Don't blame the president's decision on anyone else. He chose to not nominate someone that congress would approve of. That's on him.
No, there are other ways, including private meetings, which some of the more moderate GOP actually did held with the candidate. But that's not the point. The point is Congress stated NO ONE, not someone not qualified as you infer. Congress was obstructing. Check and balance would be they look for someone that is qualified, not they would reject everyone.
Of course they said that....which just means that the nominee would have to be enticing for them to even consider.....Obama then nominated an anti-gun liberal justice that no Republican would ever support given that it would swing the SCOTUS sharply to the left, something they wouldn't want to make happen, so they didn't waste time rejecting him. Had Obama nominated a true moderate, or even a left leaning conservative, they'd have been voted on.....but that would be compromise, something Obama has never been known to be capable of. Anyway, like I said before, if things were reversed, you'd magically understand that this is how things are supposed to work, but right now that's not what your talking points are telling you. It's cool.
Let's keep this simple and on point. We agreed that Congress did not allow anyone, including qualified candidate, to be considered for the open Supreme Court position. That's what I and many would call obstruction. Check and balance would be to work together and progress forward to a candidate that both side can agree on. And I don't believe for a second that the father founders meant for check and balance to reject qualified candidate. I believe most would agree to that.
Sure, they SAID that they wouldn't allow anyone to be considered, but if a candidate had been proposed that enticed them to change their mind, they'd have considered them. Instead of nominating someone that they'd consider, Obama nominated someone that would never be considered. YOU call that obstruction because you want them to rubber stamp Obama's nominee, others realize that it's check and balance. The system is set up to where it encourages compromise, Obama chose not to do that, so stalemate is what the system is supposed to default to. Of course, you'd realize this if the situation was reversed because you'd have different talking points. It's similar to if I told you my house wasn't for sale and then you offered me something below market price.....I mean, I wouldn't even consider it and probably wouldn't take your phone calls anymore. Now if I say my house isn't for sale and you offered me something well over market price.....well now we might have something to talk about.
Obstruction vs. check and balance is just a semantics argument. The construction of our government allows Congress to do what they're doing. That's all that matters. If you can prove that they are obstructing and not checking and balancing, will it matter?
if it's perceived as counterproductive, the solution is to beat them at the ballot box with that argument or if they are seen as holding the line as a loyal opposition party, they will win
Then it's an exercise in confirmation bias. Those well-disposed to the Democratic President will firmly believe it's obstruction and another in a long list of reasons you should vote against the Republicans in Congress. Those well-disposed to the Republican Congress will say they are being wrongly maligned by power-hungry Democrats, which is a great reason you should support your congressman in his obstr-- exercise of his duty as a check upon the power of the presidency.
Basically, yeah. Which is why you get the people rolling on with talking points about how mean Congress is being to Obama by not doing what he demands of them and you have others pointing out that Congress is simply acting as it was intended. Switch things around and you'd have Republican partisans whining about obstructionism and Democrat partisans (and people who are just right) being the ones talking about how Congress is just doing their part in a checks and balances system.
Always so revisionist. Garland was as centrist a pick as one could expect from a Democrat, which Obama did on purpose to embarrass the Congress for not vetting him. Sure, if Obama had appointed a solid Republican, Congress might have approved him (though I'm not sure...) but it's a little ridiculous to expect the president will appoint someone from the opposition party. Call what Congress is doing obstruction or mere exercise of their authority, but it's a real stretch to say Obama hasn't done his part for collaboration here. He handed them a moderate appointment. Congress bet on Trump instead.
How the government function does matter a lot. If the intention is to obstruct and not a check on power, than the government would have never done anything ever. Since the intention was a check on power, the government have over time progress, ever so slowly and cautious, but do move forward (and sometime backward).
You say that, but he's not a centrist. When Reagan put forth the Kennedy nomination, THAT was a centrist and that's why the Democrats voted for him. He's probably the most middle of the road justice the SCOTUS has ever seen. If Obama made a move like that, it would have been supported. He didn't. Now sure, maybe Garland is the most "moderate" liberal that Obama could ever think of, given his previous nominees that seems likely, but that's still just not good enough. Offering 5K under market value just isn't going to make someone that told you their house isn't for sale take you seriously.....even if you bought other houses for much less under different circumstances. If Garland was his best offer, he shouldn't have even wasted his time.
The government always defaults to doing nothing and if we always had polarizing presidents that were unwilling to work with the opposition party, then sure, nothing would ever get done. Fortunately that's not the case. Some of the best legislation often comes out of a situation where the Congress is of one party and the president is of another. Hell just about every success story Bill Clinton claims as his own happened as a result of him working with the congress that impeached him. This time around we just had a president that dug his heels in from day one and would barely negotiate with dissenting opinions within his own party, let alone anyone from outside. As such, we had a lot of gridlock once he was no longer able to simply dictate exactly what was going to be passed and how. Hopefully the next president will be better....but given the 2 options, there's almost no way that happens.
Now you are saying they didn't meant what they said? OK. I guess this is something that is very acceptable among some people - like Trump supporters. It doesn't really matter what he said, right? That might explain why he can say whatever that mouth of his can utter.
I'm saying that's exactly what people say in that situation. I even gave you an analogy about someone saying their house isn't for sale....I mean that might be what they say, but if you make a good enough offer, you can change their mind. If that's over your head, I can accept that. The Republicans had no reason to want to accept another SCOTUS nominee from Obama who did nothing but push through fringe left justices. By taking that stance, they were letting him know that he was REALLY going to have to give them someone worth consideration to even get the ball rolling. Maybe he did the best he could with Garland, but it wasn't enough.
A Republican president (Reagan) nominates a far right justice and then has to settle for nominating a right of center justice and it's bipartisanship. A Democratic president (Obama) nominates a left of center justice and it's blind partisanship. Bobby logic, folks.
