Who's up for some holiday-era, tiresome, predictable whining from the New York Times editorial board, whose impotence was laid bare by voters last month? The editors -- who, in another inevitable failure, are now calling for the abolishment of the electoral college in the wake of Hillary Clinton's loss -- are coming to grips with the reality that Donald Trump will replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court. Because liberals so often rely on the judiciary to impose outcomes that fail at the ballot box, this is a devastating development for the Left, especially if another vacancy or two were to arise during Trump's term. For now, the Times is reduced to bitter, hysterical complaints:
The person who gets confirmed will sit in a stolen seat. It was stolen from Barack Obama, a twice-elected president who fulfilled his constitutional duty more than nine months ago by nominating Merrick Garland, a highly qualified and widely respected federal appellate judge. It was stolen by top Senate Republicans, who broke with longstanding tradition and refused to consider any nominee Mr. Obama might send them, because they wanted to preserve the court’s conservative majority. The main perpetrators of the theft were Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and Charles Grassley, chairman of the Judiciary Committee. But virtually all Republican senators were accomplices; only two supported holding hearings. The Republican party line — that it was an election year, so the American people should have a “voice” in the selection of the next justice — was a patent lie. The people spoke when they re-elected Mr. Obama in 2012, entrusting him to choose new members for the court. And the Senate has had no problem considering, and usually confirming, election-year nominees in the past.
This angry piece omits inconvenient counter-examples from our history, of course, because that might interrupt the demagoguery party. This seat was not "stolen." It remained unfilled in an election year, in accordance with the so-called 'Biden Rule'. In case the crew at the Times has forgotten, I'll let sitting Democratic Vice President Joe Biden explain his reasoning:
Recommended
President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not--and not--name a nominee until after the November election is completed. The Senate, too, Mr. President, must consider how it would respond to a Supreme Court vacancy that would occur in the full throes of an election year. It is my view that if the President goes the way of Presidents Fillmore and Johnson and presses an election-year nomination, the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over...
Did the Times denounce Biden for his "patent lie" back then? Of course not, because they agreed with the "lie" at the time. Click through for extra goodies from Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer, who both offered justifications for obstructing Republican-nominated judges in the past -- escalating partisan tactics that have always been cheered on by the New York Times, which is nothing less of an unprincipled, ends-justify-the-means propaganda organ of the Democratic Party. The Times' hypocrisy on the filibuster, for instance, is actually pretty hilarious in its hacktastic predictability. It's also worth pointing out that in addition to their scorched-earth editorializing against the election of Donald Trump, the Times editors urged voters across the country to defeat Republicans in a series of key Senate races. In most of them -- from Florida, to Missouri, to North Carolina -- voters ignored the New York Times, and the GOP retained its majority. In other words, the left-wing Times elites keep screaming into the ether, and people keep ignoring them. The resulting frustration is leading to mounting derangement, to the point that I can't help but wonder whether the Times may come out in favor of this preposterously illegal scheme before the year is out. I'll leave you with this -- it seems the Left isn't mustering much of an appetite for self-awareness and introspection:
A psychologist explains how a nationwide ‘breakdown of empathy’ has created today’s toxic GOP https://t.co/rpaH9amjdI pic.twitter.com/9k6YgeGJz8
— Raw Story (@RawStory) December 26, 2016
Might empathy also be a problem for the 'non-toxic' party that has lost the WH, Senate, House, & ~2/3 of governorships & state legislatures? https://t.co/6C5X6uw3fb
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) December 26, 2016
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