Skip the rest of the article – it’s largely that marvelous combination of sneer/whine that typifies Beltway punditry when things aren’t going their way – and note this:
It is likely, then, that Ginsburg and Breyer will only be replaced by similar mainstream liberals if there is unified Democratic control of the White House and the Senate.
Basically, The Plum Line is trying to convince those two Supreme Court Justices to retire now for the benefit of the cause, and hopefully be replaced by young liberal Justices who will hang on for twenty years. Which is precisely the sort of thing that one does when one is uncertain that one’s Senatorial majority will last beyond… well, effectively, September 2014. If a Supreme Court vacancy happens after that there’s darn little chance that it’d be taken up before before January 2015 anyway.
I actually do expect that one or both of those Justices will retire in 2015, because Barack Obama will encourage them not to have 2014 also be about a knock-down, drag-out fight that reminds Republican voters why they want to have a Republican-controlled Senate. Besides, a Republican Senate that accepts any judicial nomination of Obama’s will be useful to Democratic propagandists. A Democratic Senate would successfully confirm absolutely awful candidates, sure – but a Republican one would eventually confirm some mildly bad ones*, and the mildly bad candidates will be right there while the absolutely awful ones will be safely theoretical.
Mind you, I’d rather have that problem then the one of how do we keep Barack Obama from nominating horrid Justices?
Moe Lane
*Orbital Mind Control Lasers could not convince Barack Obama to nominate a member of the Federalist Society. I’m all for optimism run wild, but some things are not realistic.
Been awhile since we had a good Illuminati game reference. Thanks for that.
Is reminding voters in 2016 somehow better?
.
Mew
This could lead to some interesting times – if SCOTUS ends up ruling that the plain language of the recess appointments clause means what it clearly was intended to mean, only vacancies that occur during a recess can be recess-appointed, would King Barack ignore that and do a recess appointment of a hard liberal to get around a Republican Senate? I know it’s not likely to happen, I mean a Republican Senate is probably a coinflip at this point, but SCOTUS ruling that plain, easy to understand language means what it says probably only has a 0.1% chance of happening. Still, it could be fun.
I’m sorry Moe, but we should at least be able to force Obama to nominate a justice centrist enough that they might, just might, turn into their *Souter*
And we absolutely MUST Bork the first SCOTUS nominee to the Left of Kennedy. Just to make a point. He/she could be to the Right of Ginsburg, but we should still Bork them just to see how the Left likes it.
With McCain and Grahm still in the Senate? Tall order.
Graham is going to get beat if he’s forced into a runoff with either Connor or Bright.