Vice President Mike Pence has watched the Senate prepare to consider Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, and he wants everyone to know he’s disappointed by those rascally Democrats and their disrespectful posture.
Vice President Mike Pence blamed a lack of progress on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court in the Senate on Democrats, tweeting that in a more “respectful time” Kavanaugh would already be on the court.
Said Pence: “Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed 98-0 and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg received support of 96 Senators. If we lived in a more respectful time, Judge Brett Kavanaugh would be overwhelmingly confirmed by the United States Senate.”
I realize memories are often short in D.C., but I’m curious: does Pence consider 2016 a “respectful” time?
Because it was two years ago that Barack Obama nominated a compromise pick for the high court — Judge Merrick Garland, who’d been recommended by at least one conservative Senate Republican — who, in a more respectful time, would have been overwhelmingly confirmed by the United States Senate.
But he wasn’t. Instead, Garland was subjected to an unprecedented partisan blockade, organized by Mike Pence’s party, that denied the moderate jurist confirmation hearings, committee consideration, and an up-or-down vote.
If the current vice president was concerned about qualified Supreme Court nominees being treated with “respect,” he kept those opinions to himself.
Similarly, shortly before Election Day 2016, several Senate Republicans announced they were prepared to block any Hillary Clinton nominee for the Supreme Court, regardless of merit, if she were to win the presidency.
Referring to the Scalia vacancy, Burr declared in late October 2016, “If Hillary becomes president, I’m going to do everything I can do to make sure that four years from now, we’re still going to have an opening on the Supreme Court.” McCain added around the time, “I promise you that we will be united against any Supreme Court nominee that Hillary Clinton, if she were president, would put up. I promise you.”
I’ve looked for evidence of Mike Pence complaining at the time about the lack of “respect” for qualified Supreme Court nominees, but I can’t seem to find anything.
I wonder why that is.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."