The hypocrite’s oath

Dissembling, again, in Washington, D.C.

SOMEBODY once said that where you stand in Washington is where you sit. Something that’s inconceivably disastrous for the country one day is a necessary improvement the next, depending on who said what and when—and who is controlling the government. Barack Obama campaigns in 2008 against same-sex marriage, and he’s taking a principled stand. Donald Trump does it eight years later, and he’s an ogre. And the same people are quoted both times.

Hypocrisy is nothing new in politics. This past week, We the People got another example of it.

Mr. Justice Anthony Kennedy announced Wednesday that he will retire this summer. If the old saw had it that the Supreme Court’s decisions of the 1980s depended on what Sandra Day O’Connor had for breakfast, the more recent rulings of the court in the 2000s might have depended on Mr. Justice Kennedy’s lunches. He was the swing vote many times, in many rulings, as all these 5-4 decisions have guided man and law, even if not God. (He follows His own law.)

The president of the United States will now nominate Anthony Kennedy’s replacement. And unlike a David Souter or a Sandra Day O’Connor, who were nominated by Republican presidents, it is thought that Donald Trump will nominate a real conservative. If one is confirmed, it would cement the current president’s legacy for years to come, if he does nothing else for two more years.

Which is why the panic among the loyal opposition.

Chuck Schumer, always good for a chuckle, says the U.S. Senate should now follow the so-called Biden Rule, and not act on a court nominee in an election year. The minority leader, who is more in the minority in the U.S. Senate than a leader, said it would be the “height of hypocrisy” for the Senate to act on a nominee just now. And boy, he should know.

The Biden Rule is named after, you guessed it, Joe Biden, who was once upon a time a U.S. senator. Back in 1992, he gave a speech demanding that President Bush I delay any nomination to the high court until after the November elections. Because a Republican was in the White House. (There is no record of his asking for such delays during Democratic administrations.)

But at least Joe Biden was speaking during a presidential election year. Chuck Schumer would have presidents, at least Republican ones, stop nominating judges every election year, including in a mid-term such as this. Which, in effect, would mean that presidents wouldn’t nominate judges 50 percent of the time.

We turn to another politician of some note on the national level, and quote him here, in his own words, in an op-ed for the Washington Post in 2016:

“Until now, even through all lthe partisan battles of recent decades, the Senate’s constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president’s Supreme Court nominees has remained inviolable.”— thenSen. Harry Reid.

Of course, that was when Barack Obama was president, in an election year—and he, as Gentle Reader knows, was a Democrat. Where you stand is where you sit.

Another couple of Washington insiders wrote this for Time magazine after Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland in 2016 and Republicans in the Senate balked:

“There is no modern precedent for the blockade that Senate Republicans have put in place. Even highly contentious nomination battles in the past, including those over Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas, followed the normal process of hearings and an up-or-down vote. Leaving the current blockade in place could leave a seat on the Court vacant for the remainder of this term and perhaps the next as well, which could leave major cases in limbo … . That is simply not acceptable. We cannot let today’s crisis of leadership turn into a full-blown constitutional crisis.”—Jon Huntsman and Joe Lieberman.

That same year, according to the Washington Post, another politician demanded action on that nominee, election year be damned: “To leave the seat vacant at this critical moment in American history is a little bit like saying, ‘God forbid something happen to the president and the vice president, we’re not going to fill the presidency for another year and a half.’”

That was Joe Biden.

THIS PRESIDENT hasn’t served even half of one term yet. To say in June of his second year that the Senate should take no action on his nominees until after the November elections is to stretch things. Thankfully, Republicans control the Senate. If they can keep their caucus together, they should be able to push through the nominee. Even though Democrats will scream bloody murder.

But if you want to know the precedent of pushing nominees through, and busting the filibuster and the 60-vote super majority requirement, look no further than Harry Reid, who blew up the process when he didn’t get his way with his Republican colleagues during the last administration.

Hypocrisy is nothing new in politics. But it still should be pointed out.