Democrats Should Be Reminded They Set The Standard On Blocking Judicial Nominees, Not Republicans

Democrats always believe history starts whenever a Republican does something they don’t like, and anything they say has an expiration date. Barack Obama in 2012 was not responsible for anything he said in 2008 because in the mind of Democrats, whatever Obama said, expired and the new statement takes over. Similarly, there is a lot of weeping going on over Merrick Garland. Most Democrats (and the liberals in the entertainment industry engaging in identical weeping) couldn’t pick Merrick Garland out of a lineup, but they’re treating him like the girl who couldn’t get a date to the prom.

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When Antonin Scalia passed away last year, Republicans immediately announced they would not entertain a replacement in an election year and Obama’s lame duck year. Obama, whose ego is only outsized by President Trump’s, defied Republicans and nominated Garland anyway. Republicans stuck to their word and didn’t consider Garland. I feel sorry for the man, having been used by Democrats as a political pawn.

Democrats history of blocking and attempting to block, qualified judicial nominees goes back 30 years to the Robert Bork nomination in 1987. Bork had impeccable credentials and sat on the same court circuit court (DC) as Antonin Scalia who was confirmed the year before and confirmed unanimously. The smearing of Bork started when that lowlife, Ted Kennedy, took to the floor of the Senate and said the following:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy.

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Considering Kennedy was less than 20 years removed from when he left Mary Jo Kopechne to die in a car in Chappaquiddick, it still stuns me that he could smear somebody in such a way. The smear took hold, however, and Bork was eventually rejected in the Senate. Bork was so angry with the treatment he received from Democrats (and their cohorts in the media) that Bork resigned his appellate court judgeship in 1988.

Four years after Bork was nominated to the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas was nominated to serve on the Supreme Court by President Goerge H.W. Bush. Enter another smear campaign, this one led by the liar, Anita Hill. Hill famously accused Thomas of sexual harassment. The hearings Thomas faced were brutal, and Democrats used Hill’s testimony as a means of trying to get Thomas to withdraw his name from consideration. The most unseemly part of the Thomas smear is that Hill made her accusations to the Senate Judiciary Committee in a statement that she asked to remain anonymous. Instead, Democrats leaked it to Newsweek and NPR making sure the entire spectacle would be played out in public.

Thomas was eventually confirmed by the Senate but not before he was subject to humiliating hearings and absurd questioning from idiots like Joe Biden and of course, Ted Kennedy, who was now 22 years removed from the time he allowed Mary Jo Kopechne to die. Thomas famously referred to the hearings as a “high-tech lynching, judiciary” and I see no reason to disagree with him. Thomas’s statement to the Judiciary Committee is worth watching. 

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Miguel Estrada is another case of the Democrats obstructed the nomination of a man considered “well-qualified” by the American Bar Association. Estrada was nominated to serve on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by George W. Bush on May 9, 2001. Estrada, an immigrant from Honduras, and raised by a single mother, also had impeccable credentials. From his bio:

He graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia in 1983. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree magna cum laude in 1986 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After law school, Estrada served as a law clerk to Judge Amalya Lyle Kearse of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He then clerked for Justice Anthony M. Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court during his first year on the Court in 1988.From 1990 until 1992, Estrada served as Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Chief of the Appellate Section, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York. In 1992, he joined the United States Department of Justice as an Assistant to the Solicitor General for the George H. W. Bush Administration where he served with now Chief Justice John G. Roberts. In those capacities, Estrada represented the government in numerous jury trials and in many appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

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The Democrats excuse for blocking his nomination? Estrada had no experience as a judge. It was a pathetic excuse. They blocked Estrada’s nomination for over two years because of politics, nothing more. Estrada withdrew his name from consideration on September 4, 2003.

Twenty-eight months. 

Democrats have no shame. The next time somebody mentions Garland just respond with three words: Bork. Thomas. Estrada.

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