After Justice Scalia

Senator Mitch McConnell issued a statement soon after the announcement of Justice Antonin Scalia’s death. The statement, which offered no surprises, included this:

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

This, of course, is pure partisanship. The American people have had a voice by twice electing Barack Obama to the presidency.

Senator Lindsey Graham told MSNBC that, if President Obama offers a nomination, it should be a consensus candidate, not a liberal democrat. He suggested that Senator Orrin Hatch would fit the bill! Graham, like McConnell, would prefer to see the next president nominate the next justice.

Perhaps Orrin Hatch seems like a moderate to Senator Graham compared to the far-right Republican candidates vying for their party’s nomination, but, by any objective standard, Hatch is exceedingly concervative—not at all a moderate.

I believe that Obama should nominate an unreconstructed liberal to the Supreme Court forthwith. That person may not get through the Senate approval process, but that process will become an issue in the coming election. This will focus the mind of the electorate on what is at stake in this election.

If a Democrat becomes the next president, he or she will face much the same opposition as a liberal Democrat nominated by President Obama. Let’s get on with the constitutional process.

As if it were not already clear, the future direction of the United States of America will be determined in the next 12 months.