Scalia, the Senate and the Media: A Time For Hypocrisy

This is the kind of Washington hypocrisy that should make everyone cringe.

In the immediate aftermath of Antonin Scalia’s death, Democrats and Republicans, along with liberal and conservative commentators, are making arguments that are parsed as principled, but really naked partisanship.

They are taking positions that they would reverse in a heartbeat if the Supreme Court vacancy occurred under mirror-image circumstances. In fact, many of them have taken the opposite stance in the past.

So the high-minded rhetoric really rings hollow.

What troubled me initially is that there was no decent interval—indeed, no interval at all—between the announcement of the 79-year-old jurist’s death and the online debate over what should happen to his seat. That seemed disrespectful, but it’s the world we now live in.

President Obama says he will nominate a successor. Mitch McConnell says don’t bother, the Senate won’t be voting on a nominee because we want to wait for the next president. Both sides are invoking the Constitution.

But it’s easy to see through the pretense.

Here’s Chuck Schumer, the incoming Senate Democratic leader, saying of McConnell: “He doesn’t even know who the president’s going to propose and he said, ‘No, we’re not having hearings; we’re not going to go forward to leave the Supreme Court vacant at 300 days in a divided time.’”

And as the Daily Caller noted, here’s Schumer in July of 2007, saying Senate Democrats shouldn’t allow George W. Bush to fill any future Supreme Court vacancies “except in extraordinary circumstances”:

“We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance. We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito.”

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