Immediately after Sen. McConnell's statement, Sen.
Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), the many who will replace Harry Reid as the Democrats' leader in the Senate in January, 2017,
started threatening Sen. McConnell and Senate Republicans, saying that they'll pay a political price for their obstructionism. Sen. Schumer said "The American people don’t like this obstructionism ... a lot of the mainstream Republicans are going to say: ‘I may not follow this.'"
That's a striking departure from what Sen. Schumer said when George W. Bush was president. Back then, Sen. Schumer said "We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances. They must prove by actions, not words, that they are in the mainstream rather than we prove that they are not. So, in conclusion, in the end, these three questions provide the foundation for how we ensure that the court reflects what America wants rather than a diminishing clique of conservative ideologues wish for. There's no doubt we were hoodwinked."
Sen. Schumer is a politician playing to the public. That's what politicians do. He's trying to pressure Republicans into confirming an Obama nominee later this year. His wording is interesting. First, when Sen. Schumer talks about mainstream judges, he's hoping to find judges interested in legislating from the bench. That's who President Obama has nominated thus far. There's no reason to think that he'll deviate from that pattern.
Notice, too, that Sen. Schumer talked about "a diminishing clique of conservative ideologues." Sen. Schumer's wording isn't accidental. It's intentional. Sen. Schumer's intent is to portray any justice like Justice Scalia or Justice Alito as outside the political mainstream. Justice Scalia understood what he fought for. He understood he wasn't a super-legislator. His first responsibility was to the Constitution, not to the people.
How soon liberals forget that they did this all the time...