In the case of Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland, Republicans want to have their cake and eat it too. In other words they want to put off holding confirmation hearings on judge Garland until they know whether Donald Trump will win the election. If he does they will hold the hearings subsequent to January 20, 2017, which will be after he is sworn in as president. If he does not win then many of them want to confirm him before Hillary Clinton is sworn in so that she cannot withdraw his name and submit the name of a more liberal candidate.
My thoughts? If they continue to try to pull off this partisan stupid stunt, Secretary Clinton should definitely withdraw Judge Garland’s name if she wins and turn their Republican dream into the nightmare on 261 Russell Senate Office Building. As a matter of fact if she wins, in light of the current political atmosphere, she should immediately ask President Obama to withdraw his name. This does not mean that judge Garland is not a good man who is undeniably qualified to do the job; what it means is that President Obama compromised and nominated him in good faith in order to get the Republicans to act quickly to place him in office and avoid the need for the Supreme Court to operate with eight Justices and they balked.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already had his cake for too long and he still insists that he will not allow confirmation hearings for any nominee while President Obama is still in office. So since he has had his cake so long and insists on continuing in his stubborn ways perhaps Democrats should spare him the pain of trying to figure out whether or not he can have it and eat it too. Besides, by the time that he figures things out his proverbial cake would surely be stale. And I’ll bet that he wouldn’t like stale cake anyway: I’m sure that I can’t but maybe one of his Democratic colleagues in the senate could get a drink with him and find out for sure (an inside joke. It is only funny if you know the details behind it.).
With pandemonium being worthy of becoming the current watchword in the Republican Party thanks in large part to their standard bearer Donald Trump, one would think that Republicans would be doing everything in their power to assure that he would be the very last person to nominate a Supreme Court Justice. Unfortunately, it seems that Party loyalty and Party unity trumps that (pun intended). Because although Mr. Trump continues to make a mockery of the American political process and make America the laughingstock of the world, Republicans refuse to withdraw their support from him.
The fact that Republicans are reluctant to withdraw their support of him has emboldened Mr. Trump. This is reflected in the fact that even though his campaign is already embroiled in controversy over those who are running his campaign and the accusation that he is too cozy with Russia and is enamored with Vladimir Putin, he recently signaled his intention to continue with his campaign of divisiveness and hatred by hiring Breitbart News Chairman Stephen Bannon as his campaign’s chief executive. In addition, and hopefully on the positive side, he hired Kellyanne Conway to be his new campaign manager. Ms. Conway is a well respected Republican pollster who is expected to portray The Donald as a softer and gentler Donald Trump. And given her reputation, she is likely to succeed in doing this. But don’t buy it!
This message goes out to all African Americans, all other people of color, women in general, veterans and all of the people of various religions and ethnicities that Mr. Trump has so nonchalantly insulted. I implore you; do not let this experienced thespian fool you with his soft words. Ms. Conway might be able to coax Mr. Trump into using softer and gentler words but let there be no doubt, he is and will remain the same old Donald J. Trump. Do not allow Kellyanne Conway to normalize Mr. Trump with soft words and a facade of kindness. The only thing that he really cares about is Donald J. Trump.
Just taking into consideration one perspective, that of a woman, Ms. Conway may not agree with the demeaning things that Mr. Trump has said about women and so, therefore, is only doing her job. Many of us do that. We do it until we reach that line that we have drawn in the sand, which we are unwilling to cross. If Ms. Conway does not believe in Mr. Trump, his message to the American people, the direction in which he intends to take America and how he intends to get us there then she has not yet reached her line in the sand.
Mr. Trump is a dangerous man who does not have the temperament or gravitas to be the President of the United States of America. The sad part is that most Republicans realize this and agree with all of those – Democrats, Republicans and Independents – who openly acknowledge it but yet there are those Republicans who still refuse to rebuke Mr. Trump and withdraw their support of him. If they decide that they will withdraw it the implication is that the timing must be right so that it will have the least negative impact as possible on the Republican agenda. They are doing this even if it means putting America at risk by potentially putting her fate into the hands of Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Trump likes to make comments like “I don’t like to regret things” and – in appealing to African Americans in an effort to get their votes, “What the hell do you have to lose.” We can only hope that this is not the same line of thinking and logic that those Republicans who are stubbornly continuing to support Donald Trump are using. If it is, America is in a real dilemma!
Eulus Dennis – author, Operation Rubik’s Cube and Living Between The Line