Now that Senate Democrats have “gone nuclear,” judicial nominees that have been held up for months or even years can finally be confirmed.
To you or I this means a destructive pattern of obstruction will finally come to end, but for National Review columnist Charles W. Cooke, this means a military coup is just around the corner.
President Obama addressed the press to defend the Democrats’ choice. “Over the past five years we’ve seen an unprecedented pattern of obstruction in Congress that’s prevented too much of the American people’s business from getting done,” Obama said. The result, Obama continued, is that his nominees have languished in the Senate two and a half times as long as those put forward under the George W. Bush’s administration.
Cooke did not take Obama’s comments well, paraphrasing the president as having said “the American business is far too important for the rules.” “Well, how far do you take that?” Cooke pondered aloud. “You could just ignore the House. You could have a military coup, you could have anything at the end of this.”
We could have anything at the end of this? I’ll take a double cheeseburger with everything.
It should be noted that, in the case of the DC circuit, there have been vacancies on the bench for a very long time. The president isn’t “packing the court.” He’s fulfilling his duty to make appointments to fill vacancies.
As far as a military coup goes, I’ll have some of what Charles Cooke is having.