Some posters have already said this is revisionist. If you have a link to a 2016 quote from McConnell saying what you expressed here, I'd like to see it. He did it because he could get away with it. Given that's his real governing principle, you're right he hasn't changed.
I found @tallanvor's marching orders here: https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mitch-mcconnell-hasnt-reversed-himself/. I'll spare folks the click -- the linked article doesn't bother to provide a quote to back up the claim either. Just simple revisionist rationalization.
Really? here I thought I got it from powerline. Either way, all you have to do is listen to Mitch when he's discussing the issue in front of the Senate. Here he is quoting Biden: "But as I see it, Mr. President, the cost of such a result, the need to reargue three or four cases that will divide the justices four to four are quite minor compared to the cost that a nominee, the president, the senate, and the nation would have to pay for what would assuredly be a bitter fight, no matter how good a person is nominated by the President, if that nomination were to take place in the next several weeks." Comrade? Is this you saying you still believe the RussiaHoax?
McConnell has no principles except that of obtaining as much power as possible. He's just another brown-nosing scumbag
That doesn't sound like any appeal to a general principle. If 4 years from now, he found himself in the minority in the Senate but President Trump nominated another Justice, he'd be wriggling like a worm on a hook trying to reason why the Senate should grant the nominee a hearing. Aside from that, avoiding consideration of a nominee to avoid a fight (the costs of which I'm told are large but I don't know what they are) is some weak sauce. Obama tried to avoid a fight by picking a centrist nominee. If there was going to be a fight, it'd be of McConnell's making. In fact, he did make a fight because the national wounds he caused by refusing to consider a nominee are more grievous and longer lasting than anything that could have happened in a confirmation hearing. If the Senate had voted Garland down, we'd be mostly over it by now.
Heck, conservative senator orin hatch recommended Garland to Obama. Garland was praised by most republicans.
If in 4 years Democrats found themselves in the majority in the senate they would prove themselves to be just a hypocritical as the Republicans. Democrats would be wriggling like worms on a hook to do the mental gymnastics to try and justify not voting on Trump's nominee when they made the exact same argument for Obama's nominee 8 years earlier.
You see, you have to create a hypothetical... "IF in 4 years" Democrats... . The fact is you don't need to create a hypothetical with republicans... they did prove themselves to be hypocrites (and worse). And btw, which trump nominee was blocked like Garland? But I do think that when the pendulum swings back (as it always does), Democrats will escalate this. Can you blame them?
That genie is already out of the box. It’s call precedent. The senate also operate by norms and unwritten rules, by an honor system to some extend. A better hypothetical is escalation ... if dem takes the senate and trump win election and the senate proceed to not consider a single SCJ nomination not just in the last year but 2 years prior to election or even 3 or even 4. That would then establish a new norm - your political party have to win both the senate and president for any SCJ nomination to be considered. Wouldn’t that be wonderful for the country ?
So, you agree. Democrats will be hypocrites if given the chance. That's all that needed to be said. The moralistic grand-standing of your first paragraph was totally pointless.
Right. So the Dems will be hyprocrites and that's ok because "the Republicans did it first" - Ok. That seems correct.
Of course the Democrats wouldn't let a Trump nominee see the light of day of day in this scenario now that they've seen how a nominee from a president in their own party was treated. It doesn't mean that the argument at the time that Garland should've at least received a hearing wasn't correct or in good faith. There was no precedent for how the Senate Republicans handled Garland, a similar situation happened near the end of Reagan's second term and he still got a justice on the court with a Democratic-controlled Senate confirming.
And the moderate well mannered Dem politicians with their Ivy League political consultants wonder why they keep getting their asses handed to them decade after decade. Can they be that dumb? I would say mainly they are just content to be incumbents.
Right, and every argument they made for the consideration of Garland? The moralistic grand-standing.. they will have to back track on that. Every "public good" "duty of the Senate" argument etc etc.
What's your opinion of republicans being hypocrites right now? A toxic environment has been created, where if you take the high road, you lose. If your opponents have no respect for their jobs or the rules, and their constituents support them in doing so, and will never be held accountable for it... what do you do? Follow the rules and be forever at a disadvantage to your honorless opponent? Or get down in the mud with them? My question isn't rhetorical, I really don't know the answer.
Of course they will. They want payback. If hypocrisy is the concern, yup they'll be as hypocritical as McConnell. I don't care about hypocrisy -- I assume it for every politician, and really every person in the right circumstance. I'm concerned about the political volatility. The Democrats will pay the Republicans back in kind, and later the Republicans will get their revenge too. At the same time, Democrats are going to nominate a lefty president to counter the white nationalist Republicans foisted on us, and the Republicans will react by getting someone more extremist. This is not a healthy cycle we're in. We need a genuine leader to come and put the recrimination to an end and lead us back to the normal order. I don't expect that'll happen. McCain made his appeal and it was a fart in the wind. I think we're in for a lot of political grief for a long time to come. So, I'd say this: McConnell's decision to not hear Garland was not helpful in returning to normal order.
Odd, you seem to suggest that *if* Democrats do it in the future, its really wrong and seem to ignore that republicans already did it, and gets a pass from you. I wonder why? But I have already said I expect Democrats to escalate once the pendulum swings back to them. And I asked if people could blame them. While you seem to think Democrats should follow the rules and act ethically while republicans can act any way they want. You seem to think its pointless to act morally. In this situation, the republicans have already broken our government...
I think either party will do anything to their political advantage and be hypocritical. I'm not self-righteous about it though. The shoe is always eventually on the other foot in Washington. You see the sides and arguments reversed every 2,4,6 or 8 years. *shrugs*
Funny, you seem to have an issue with morals... I guess that was another thing we can than trump for?
