Instead of discussing Republican obstructionism against Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, Megyn Kelly promoted a “mean Obama” meme the Republicans will probably find handy should a Democrat be elected president in November.
In a teaser for the segment, Kelly said about her legal experts Tom Goldstein and Jonathan Turley, “You have got to hear what they have to say about the nominee” and “You won’t hear it anywhere but here!” But during the actual interview, she forgot to ask anything that earth shattering. They hardly discussed Garland’s record. She did not ask about how unprecedented it is for Republican senators to stonewall on even having any hearings. She did not ask about how this position by the Republicans exposes them to justifiable charges of putting politics ahead of their jobs. She did not ask about the ramifications of keeping the Supreme Court at eight jurists for the next year.
But she DID find a moment to entertain what could be a parting shot in 10 months, assuming that the GOP maintains their obstinacy for that long.
Kelly “just asked” if President Obama could be “so mean” as to withdraw Garland’s nomination before leaving office, thus crushing his hopes. Suggesting that it wouldn’t be the GOP Senators’ fault for viciously refusing to do their jobs or for leaving this nominee in limbo for a year. No, apparently a withdrawal of the nomination would just be an indication of what a jerk President Obama is, or more to the point, what a meanie.
This is undoubtedly Fox News’ fallback position in the event that Hillary Clinton wins in November, which would enable her to make her own, possibly more liberal, nominee to the Supreme Court. If she wins and if the Senate flips to the Democrats (a real possibility), Fox can suddenly start demanding she accept the centrist Garland. The Republicans will probably develop an enthusiasm for Garland at the same time, as both Turley and Kelly suggested was a possibility.
For myself, I believe the more likely scenario is that this nomination stands in the docket all the way up to the election, and that Hillary Clinton simply resubmits it at the top of her presidency, kind of like Joan Crawford making Christina eat last night’s dinner for breakfast...
Watch it below, from the March 16 The Kelly File.
NOTE: This guest post is the result of an email sent by our regular reader Kevin Koster. Many of you will recognize Kevin as one of our most insightful and thoughtful commenters. When he wrote me about this segment, catching what I had missed when I watched it, I asked if I could put it into a post. Kevin kindly agreed and gave me permission to edit as I saw fit. The result is what you see above. My thanks to Kevin for all he has contributed to the blog both above and below the fold.
Ellen
You can just about bet that, come November 9th, if the Senate hasn’t held hearings before then, the hearings will go into overdrive and EVERY GOPer will vote to confirm Garland as the next Justice simply to prevent Hillary or Bernie from naming someone less palatable to the GOP. (I believe, as long as the nomination is not formally withdrawn—or the nominee hasn’t rejected the offer—it stays open until the Senate holds hearings. I may be mistaken, but, then again, this is completely uncharted territory as no other Supreme Court Justice has ever been as self-centered as Scalia and gone up and died with nearly a year to go in a President’s term. IMS, there’s never been an instance where it’s happened. Eisenhower recess-appointed William Brennan in Oct 1956 as a political ploy—Brennan was fairly liberal but was also a Northeastern Roman Catholic Democrat, and Ike hoped his appointment would sway that bloc of voters to him; his formal confirmation hearing in 1957 was a nearly unanimous vote to confirm with only Joe “There’s Commies Everywhere, I Tells Ya!” McCarthy voting against him. And the Fortas deal that’s been mentioned recently was more about LBJ’s attempt to name him as Chief Justice to replace Earl Warren. Warren announced his intention to retire and tried to get Fortas named as CJ but that was the failure; Warren retired and Nixon nominated Warren Burger in 1969, after the election. Fortas ended up resigning at the end of 1969 and was replaced by Harry Blackmun.)
Which is precisely what will happen unless President Obama makes a recess appointment.
If he does defer to Mrs. Clinton, I’m looking forward to two things happening:
- Turtle Man McConnell running to the White House BEGGING the President to renominate Garland — and POTUS rightfully telling him to go f#%k himself
- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (aka The Notorious RBG) retiring from SCOTUS shortly after Mrs. Clinton’s inauguration — and POTUS nominating former President Barack Hussein Obama to fill that vacancy
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