Morning Fog

Rumination On Nomination - Replacing Scalia

A few days ago, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee signed a pledge that they would refuse to hold hearings on any nomination to replace Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court until after the inauguration of a new President, thus putting still more starch in the GOP's resistance to an Obama nomination. 

This should not surprise us.  It is what we would expect from the party that flatly refused to accept the results of the last two Presidential elections. In effect, their little fit of pique about the Supreme Court is just a smaller manifestation of their overarching strategy of refusing to participate in the governing of the country until the people get around to seeing the error of their (the people's) ways and elect a Republican.  Against all logic and foreseeable odds, this strategy has won them control of Congress.    

And that is why, despite objections and outrage, the reality is that the Republicans have the political power to block a nomination. Furthermore some precedent exists - both parties have at times argued for putting off such a decision when we are near the end of a President's term (but define end.) Still, I find the GOP's adamantine refusal puzzling and paradoxical.  

The stance appears to be at odds with typical conservative reverence for the Constitution, and the originalist interpretative views championed by none other than one Antonin Scalia.  Would not a serious Republican want the Court to remain functional, rather than languish as a lame duck along with the President?  What would Scalia himself have said is proper procedure? Further, when they insist that the nomination of a new Justice should await the election, they expose so clearly their conviction that the Supreme Court should be politicized.  

Politically, depriving the Court of its ninth Justice does not seem to gain the party anything.  Some voters who pay attention may blame Mitch McConnell and the various Republicans now vying to be candidate for President, for pouring still more sand in the gears of government - exactly the thing that voters appear to be fed up with.  (And by the way, what if they need the Court to put a Republican in the White House, as they did in 2000?).   

More to the point though is that the GOP may get a better deal now than later.  Betting now is that Obama will nominate a stellar legal mind of high repute, a moderate rather than a liberal firebrand. That seems eminently sensible, and helps avoid polarization of the Court.  But no one really knows now who will sit in the White House by the end of January 2017. "Traditional" politicians like McConnell may be a little leery of whom a Trump, a Cruz, or even a Rubio, might nominate.  And what if Clinton or Sanders wins?  Neither would feel much compunction to propose a moderate. Further, changes in the composition of the Senate might (surprisingly) shift a majority back to the Dems.   

Latest news is that a couple of ranking Republicans have agreed to meet Obama on the Supreme Court topic. It will be interesting to see whether they stick with their refusal to deal. 

Trump Truth - What Time Is It?

Even a broken clock, they say, is correct twice a day.  

But how about a clock that is broken in a different way?  Let's say its hands run erratically forward, backward, or even suddenly change direction 180 degrees?  How often would such a clock be correct?  No one can predict.  This is more complex, like the problem of an infinite number of monkeys tapping away at an infinite number of keyboards -- how frequently would they create a line, or even a whole play, of Shakespeare?

Still, we can admit the possibility that such a clock would sometimes be right, and perhaps even more often than the standard clock.  That brings me to Donald Trump.

Trump spouts a lot of nonsense, and he stirs the political pot with plenty of good old-fashioned lies, often more blatant ones than a "typical" politician deploys.  Yet every now and then he is right.  A few recent examples:

• Jeb Bush's contention that his brother George "kept America safe" from terrorism is indefensible poppycock.  Bush and his administration were asleep at the switch, hardly taking the terrorist threat seriously before 9/11/2001.  It can be argued that his policies and actions might even have had some small role in precipitating the attack.  Bush recovered nicely with an impressive retaliation, but that's a different matter.  (Jeb's insistence on this point cannot have won him any fans.)
• Yes, the Pope was out of line to stand on the other side of our border and register his views on a hot political issue in the U.S.  It seems he realized that belatedly.  
• Apple should indeed cooperate with the Feds in unlocking the secrets of the Bakersfield terrorists' iphones.  Apple's attitude has been pompous posturing.  Since when have we relied on corporations - the ones who shamelessly buy and sell our personal data, prod inordinately into our lives every day - to preserve our rights and freedoms? 
• On taxes, Trump admits he pays as little as he legally can, but also in on record stating that he sees many people who make immense amounts of money but pay virtually no taxes, and "it's unfair."  

This sort of thing is at the heart of Trump's populist appeal.  He speaks seemingly off the cuff, but has a very sure sense of hitting somebody's hot button with every sound bite.  Those snippets that don't resonate with voter A or voter B will be ignored; he needs only to give them one or two that are meaningful to them. 

Oh, and speaking of truths, Cruz has one:  Trump isn't really a Republican.  He's all over the map.  

 

 

 

South Carolina Clears Away Some Underbush

Well, Jeb Bush has decided to stop trying to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States.  His poor showing in the South Carolina Republican primary yesterday finally forced him to face reality.

It's possible to feel a bit of sympathy for Bush on a personal level.  But only a bit.  He foundered from the start, waiting too long to declare himself "in'" That initial impression of hesitancy, indecision, and vagueness certainly was never dispelled by his appearances before the public.  It is self-evident that he was completely out of sync with the Republican base in 2016, and he failed miserably to adapt - he just didn't get it. 

True as that analysis is, I suspect the real reason he failed was different:  He's dull and wimpy - an impression that came across loud and clear throughout.  The whole tale is encapsulated in his (early) effort to abandon his family name in favor of an exclamation point -- "Jeb!"  Pathetic.  Even if the mood of the electorate had been more "normal" - like the one prevailing as little as 8 years ago - his personality would have defeated him regardless of his experience and no matter what views he espoused.

So I can't lament his departure from the stage.  Far more lamentable, possibly for the nation and definitely for the GOP, is the field of motley fools they are offering the voters this year.