The Hypocricy of Leftist Outrage

By Rich Kozlovich

Since Supreme Court Justice Scalia unexpectedly died Senate Democrats are demanding a new SCOTUS appointee as soon as possible by the Obama administration claiming, as Harry Reid says:“It would be unprecedented in recent history for the Supreme Court to go a year with a vacant seat. Failing to fill this vacancy would be a shameful abdication of one of the Senate's most essential Constitutional responsibilities.”   Then there's Chuck Shumer who argues, "show me the clause [in the Constitution] that says [the] president's only president for three years."

I often wonder how these two man sleep at night.  They are two such amazing hypocrites who are fully aware of their hypocrisy but do it anyway because they know the main stream media will be on their side and the public's memory is poor.  But we have the Internet now - and those publishing on the Internet have long clear memories.  Memories they're sharing with the public. 

Ted Kennedy was among the Senate Democrats stopping nominations of anyone they don't like.  He's quoted: "A week from next Thursday is Thanksgiving, and under the great historic precedence of Thanksgiving, the president can release turkeys out to pasture. And my suggestion is that this president release all of his right-wing turkeys, send them back to pasture, because we're not going to accept them."  As Conservative Review notes: Senate Democrats were able to successfully filibuster several Bush nominees throughout his Presidency. Regarding President Bush’s nominees to the federal judiciary, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) declared that the Democrats wouldn’t accept a single one of them.

Shumer stated when Bush was President: “[F]or the rest of this president’s term and if there is another Republican elected with the same selection criteria let me say this: We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito. Given the track record of this president and the experience of obfuscation at the hearings—with respect to the Supreme Court, at least—I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee except in extraordinary circumstances."

And he was supported in this mentality by Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, who was the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee sending a letter to the Bush White House with signatures by all the Democrats on the Judicial Committee claiming they should have "a greater role in selecting judges, especially given that the Senate is divided 50-50 and that the Republicans are the majority only because Vice President Dick Cheney is able to break any tie." 

At one point Democrat Senators met with and listened to Prof. Laurence H. Tribe of Harvard Law School, Prof. Cass M. Sunstein of the University of Chicago Law School and Marcia R. Greenberger, the co-director of the National Women's Law Center stratigizing how to block conservative nominees and "change the ground rules and there was no obligation to confirm someone just because they are scholarly or erudite"... So they set new ground rules for SCOTUS appointees by Democrats - which is - if you don't have the right philosophical credentials you're out. 

They bragged: “Our campaign to stop Bush's extremist nominees has been extraordinarily successful so far,” boasted a Nov. 12, 2003 e-mail from Moveon.org, the left-leaning Democratic group. “Miguel Estrada, who was widely thought to be President Bush's top pick for the Supreme Court, withdrew his name from consideration after Senators filibustered his nomination, supported by more than 40,000 phone calls from MoveOn members.”

But now they're outraged because Republicans agree with them.

Adam Smith in the Weekly Standard notes: "the best evidence of the Senate's power not to vote on nominations is found in the Framers' rejection of an alternative approach to appointments. As an alternative to the "advice and consent" model, James Madison proposed a discretionary Senate veto. Under that plan, a president's nominees would automatically be appointed unless the Senate mustered a majority vote against that nomination within a fixed number of days."

"In short, Madison would have put the burden on the Senate, to affirmatively act to block a nomination. But the Framers rejected his proposal, and chose instead the "advice and consent" model, placing the burden on the president (and his supporters) to convince the Senate to confirm his nominee."

The Constitution says nothing about how the Senate handles these confirmations irrespective of what many, including Bush, claim.  The Constitution permits the Senate to organize itself as it sees fit, including having a filibuster system or not.  The Constitution doesn't even require the Senate vote on a nominee at all.  And they all know that!

However, it will be interesting to watch leftists strangling on the venomous outrage they're sure to spew out over the coming months. Venom of their own making. But none of this should surprise anyone. Leftists have only one consistent moral foundation. Do or say anything that will help them to attain the money and power they so desperately desire. No lie and no act of hypocrisy can be so vile as to prevent them from attaining that goal.