Democrats are, of course, going to try to tie Republicans’ hands behind their backs and insist they can’t fill the newly vacant Supreme Court seat because, they’ll say, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declined to do it under the same circumstances in 2016.
Eh, that’s not really true.
No one expected the late Antonin Scalia to keel over while hunting in Texas. That was a freak event that startled all of Washington. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Friday, succumbed to cancer, which, among other things, has had her in and out of the hospital for months on end.
We knew there was a good chance this was going to happen. We’ve thought so for at least three years. It’s why liberals on social media went into a frothy panic when Ginsburg was seen recently officiating a wedding amid the pandemic.
True, McConnell’s justification in 2016 for blocking then-President Barack Obama’s nominee to the court was that we were in the heat of an election and that the choice should be left up to voters.
It was a naked power grab. There’s no way around it. And it would be this time, too. But let’s not kid ourselves.
Democrats were hoping prior to the 2016 election that Ginsburg would retire under Obama so that he could appoint a new, younger justice. That was just as much about power. Unfortunately, Ginsburg, who remained a spry woman until the day she died at 87, took a gamble that she could make it through to the next Democratic president.
On Friday evening, we found out what that outcome was.
If the shoe were on the other foot, does anyone believe Democrats would be making a different choice?
McConnell already said back in February that he would go ahead and fill any seat that opens this year. It’s time for him to commit.
