Guest Post by Patrick J. Buchanan
It is a measure of the stature and the significance of Justice Antonin Scalia that, upon the news of his death at a hunting lodge in Texas, Washington was instantly caught up in an unseemly quarrel over who would succeed him.
But no one can replace Justice Scalia.
He was a giant among jurists. For a third of a century, he led the conservative wing of the high court, creating a new school of judicial thought called “originalism.”
But originalism is not conservatism, which, in the judicial era that preceded Scalia, often meant court decisions that “conserved” the radical social revolution Earl Warren’s court had imposed upon us.
Scalia believed in going back to the founding documents of the republic and discerning from them the original meaning and intent of the framers.
He would look at the purpose of the authors of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and post-Civil War amendments, and conclude that it was an absurdity to discover there, or read into them, a constitutional right to have an abortion or to marry someone of the same sex.
The words Scalia used to ridicule such nonsense did as much to discredit majority opinions as did his dissenting votes.
I remember being called into the office of White House Chief of Staff Don Regan, 30 years ago, to be informed that the judge whom Ronald Reagan would name to replace William Rehnquist, who had been named Chief Justice, would be U.S. Appellate Court Judge Antonin Scalia.
Regan was grinning at me as he made the announcement, and I let out of a whoop of victory. Since Nixon days, some of us had argued for naming an Italian Catholic to the high court. Yet, all six of Nixon’s nominees, and the only nominee of Gerald Ford, were WASPs.
Scalia’s death removes the court’s most brilliant mind and most colorful member. Personable, witty, acerbic, a fine writer, he used his opinions, mostly dissents, not only to make his case but to skewer the majority opinion.
And while Sen. Mitch McConnell may be faulted for not waiting a decent interval after Scalia’s death to declare that the Senate will not confirm any Obama nominee to succeed Scalia, the majority leader’s position is exactly the right one for the party.
Some of us in the Nixon campaign of 1968 still recall how Chief Justice Earl Warren, fearing his old antagonist Richard Nixon might be elected, offered his resignation to LBJ in June of 1968, but contingent on Senate confirmation of a successor.
The fix was in.
Johnson nominated Justice Abe Fortas, a crony, to succeed Warren and Judge Homer Thornberry of Texas, another crony, to fill the Fortas seat. Nixon, urged by his old friend William Rogers, Ike’s attorney general, stayed out of the battle. Some of us did not.
Senate Republicans, led by Bob Griffin of Michigan and including John Tower, Howard Baker and Strom Thurmond, held up the vote on Fortas, until they had enough support to sustain a filibuster and run out the clock. In October, Fortas threw in the towel.
The following spring, President Nixon named U.S. Appellate Court Judge Warren Burger to succeed Earl Warren as chief justice.
The GOP Senate majority should follow the example of that gutsy Senate Republican minority of half a century ago. The window for any Supreme Court nominees should be slammed shut — until 2017.
Republicans should tell our “transformative” president that his days of transforming America are over, that he will not be remaking the court into a bastion of the left after his departure, and that, while he has the right to nominate whom he wishes, the U.S. Senate will exercise its right to reject any nominee he sends up. If the court will then face many 4-4 decisions for the next year, so be it.
Given the divisions on the court and balance of power, and the disposition of liberal justices to impose upon the nation an ideology that would never be embraced democratically, the Republican Party is almost duty-bound to oppose any Obama nominee.
What kind of Supreme Court do the American people wish to have? That is a question to be decided in 2016 — not by a lame-duck president, but by the American electorate in November.
Does the nation want an activist judiciary to remake America into a more liberal society, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor would like to see it remade?
Or do the American people want a more constitutional court that returns power to the people and their elected representatives?
Let’s have it out.
Republicans should tell the American people that when they vote in November they will be deciding not only the next president, not only which party shall control Congress, they will be deciding what kind of Supreme Court their country should have. Which is as it should be.
If the GOP can’t win this argument, they have lost the country.
I appreciate the sentiment, but at this point in time, holding out to nominate a “conservative” is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The trajectory that this country is on is irreversible at this point, and it will come to revolution and civil war and most likely a genocide or two before the mess we have gotten into as a nation is straightened out.
Does anyone really believe the deep state will throw in the towel after the Supreme Court starts declaring their abuses unconstitutional? They will have the dirt on any new nominee exactly 5 minutes after nomination along with “an offer that cannot be refused” should the new justice ever step out of line.
It seems to be out of place to want to interpret the present from a lop-sided perception of the past which, though perhaps factually true, seems unable to free itself of an ideology which has plagued this great nation’s past, more especially during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The world we inhabit does not wait for anyone, and to suggest that a deliberative body, like the U.S. Senate, not fulfill its constitutionally mandated and required function of “advice and consent” simply because one wants to characterize, or mischaracterize a (not as yet announced) nominee as ideologically flawed, from the get go, seems to take partisan politics to new and irresponsible heights. The nation’s judiciary cannot properly function in the manner the U.S. Constitution envisions it that it should now for more than two centuries. Such an irresponsible suggestion seems to want to put a new spin on the very apparent inability to engage a political opponent in meaningful, reasoned and engaged dialogue, and it makes our nation suffer even more so. Say nothing of the heavy hand it visits upon the urgent and pressing business of our nation by causing undue delay.
Suppose the WH had been in the hands of the same party which now is in the majority of both houses of Congress, in effect a one-party democracy if that is not a contradiction in terms. Would it not be that the very same party which vituperates and inveighs against its political opponents would hasten to fill this position if it had the opportunity to do so, deaf to any protestation from its political opponents or the populace at-large for appointing Federal judges to a lifetime appointment deaf and blind to the plight of the nation’s citizenry and unable to let balance and a measured judicial temperament be a better guidepost to confirm a nomination, rather than an ideological litmus test?
All truth will see the light of day, eventually, and as Abraham Lincoln is quoted to have observed so long ago, “You can fool some of the people all the time and all the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
Regardless of who gets the seat or when……….it’s too little, too late. Stick a fork in this former republic, she’s done!
I wonder how long it will be until the repubbies cave and give the next appointment to Obammy? I’m sure Ryan will serve up a deal no one can say no to.
Pat is ever the optimist.
There’s no replacing Scalia. Look how long it took to fold Roberts like an origami swan.
It is what it is.
I think, sadly, you are correct HSF. I can’t imagine the election of a POTUS making a difference in the decay of this country and I can’t imagine anyone being more of a disappointment as a member of SCOTUS than Roberts.
Republicans will cave.
Judge Andrew Napolitano would be a good start. Ya, I know, it’s not going to happen. But hey, I can hope can’t I ?
The Republicans are going to give Obama whatever he wants.
They always have, the recent budget deal where they actually gave him more than he asked for being a fresh example.
Of course they’ll make rhetoric against it, but in the end they”ll be true to nature and give it to him with some excuse about how good a deal it really was and how they scored another victory or something.
The GOP has been bent over presenting its fully-lubed asshole to Obama for 7 years now, so why on Earth would Pat think that’s going to change now?
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress says:
“I appreciate the sentiment, but at this point in time, holding out to nominate a “conservative” is just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.”
True statement but to do nothing would be tantamount to running toward the sinking stern of the Titanic, where immediate death is a certainty, rather than the bow, in order to gain a few more precious minutes to breathe, to think, perchance to live.
The trajectory the country is on will be changed by those entirely uncivil events you mention, sooner or later. If we are to die, we cannot go down without a fight. Until open combat is the fact du jour, the political battle of this SCOTUS appointment and the upcoming presidential election are the most important battles we have. Even in wartime – on the whole – there will be civil authority and many of the institutions of civil society.
The leaders we will need to fight the battles ahead are being forged by the battles of today. Every step of pressing a constitutionally based argument is critical to raising the knowledge level of ‘We the People’ and the leadership itself. Increasing the knowledge of the principles for which we fight is how I hope we can avoid a CWII that looks too much like the French experience of 1789-1799.
Awwww look. An asshole who thinks there is any measurable difference .
Bullshit noise.
“Given the divisions on the court and balance of power, and the disposition of liberal justices to impose upon the nation an ideology that would never be embraced democratically,”
This is what is most frustrating. Along with phony polls, a MSM which acts as the mouthpiece for the leftists and just plain twisting of facts and truth–the majority continue to be herded along this path of national/constitutional suicide.
The republicans SHOULD delay nomination of the next SCOTUS, they SHOULD have demanded defunding of Planned Parenthood and they SHOULD have fought tooth and nail against the TPP…but they never do. They will roll over ( or maybe they are just complicit and his is all theatre)
We need a non-establishment candidate badly at this pivotal point in our nation.
Regarding the it-doesnt-matter-at-this-point meme.
It has been sad those nine folks in black robes are the most powerful group in America ….. given their ability to shred (or, uphold) the Constitution.
If that’s true, then waiting for the best conservative judge is at least a good start.
Stucky,
More than just America, they’re the most powerful people in the world at this point.
They make a decision, the world ends up revolving around it in one way or another.
Hoo boy, Pat sure is the optimist. He’s assuming a republican WILL win the presidency? Would that we could see into the future…
If this issue stays on the table, the entire remainder of the presidential race will be about who will appoint the best (read: most activist for our side) judge. No thanks. I want it to be decided on a number of issues. The repubs will try to out conservative each other, especially on social issues, which will turn off a whole lot of voters. hillary, otoh, will just say she’ll appoint obama, which will probably win her the election.
I despise obama and everything he stands for with every fiber of my being, but I think the repubs should go through the process with anyone he nominates, and not just obstruct for obstruction sake (which will also piss off a lot of voters). Maybe I’m dreaming, but maybe they could force him to nominate someone more middle of the road/tolerable to both sides. Then a KNOWN QUANTITY is in place. Heck, it won’t be long before there will be other vacancies. Half of ’em look like they’re dead already.
I think the potential of leaving the appointment up to the hildebeast is FAR more frightening.
Let’s see. “Originalism.” Like, the SC appoints the president and we won’t bother counting the votes. And, ” citizen” and “people” actually means “corporations” and “speech” actually means “money.”
Sotomayer, Kagen, etc. are terrible but Scalia was a NWO wet dream and Bush family operative. Didn’t see him hold Roberts feet to the fire on 2 Owebomberkare decisions either.
phoolish,
I can see how you got your screen name.
Oh? Which of the above noted decisions do I cite in error? Sure, I speculate about the NWO, Bush-buddy, and Roberts shell-game issue … the rest are facts and those speculations are entirely in play.
See my post on the question of the day — Supreme Court Appointment.
This seems like a good place to vent my feelings about this year’s politics:
* Republicans have no heart
* Democrats have no soul
* Libertarians have no pragmatism
* Socialists have no common sense
* Fascists have no scruples
* Voters have no hope
* America has a stormy future
Strange day when PCR and the World Socialist Website are in Agreement.
Like I said, a NWO wet dream.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article44233.htm