Chip Bok's Bokbluster

Hypocrisy in defense of virtue is no vice… or something like that.

Justice Antonin Scalia died in February 2016, ten months before the November presidential election.

So President Obama did his duty and nominated Merrick Garland to fill the opening. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to bring the nomination to the Senate floor for a vote.

Here’s what McConnell had to say about that:

“The American people may well elect a president who decides to nominate Judge Garland for Senate consideration,” McConnell said. “The next president may also nominate someone very different. Either way, our view is this: Give the people a voice.”

The already touchy Democrats weren’t happy.

Hypocrisy

But here’s what Senator Schumer had to say in 2007 when George W. Bush was president:

I will recommend to my colleagues that we should not confirm a Supreme Court nominee EXCEPT in extraordinary circumstances.”

And here’s what Schumer had to say when the Notorious RBG joined her good friend Nino in eternal rest:

The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, the vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.

Oh, and then there’s Lindsey Graham explaining in 2016 why Judge Garland shouldn’t be confirmed:

I want you to use my words against me. If there’s a Republican president in 2016 and a vacancy occurs in the last year of the first term, you can say Lindsey Graham said let’s let the next president, whoever it might be, make that nomination