SCOTUS: the Constitution is clear
Upon a vacancy occurring, the president chooses a nominee. The Senate votes to confirm or reject.
There has been a vacancy. It is the president's task to nominate a successor. The Constitution does NOT say "except if it's an election year, and the opposition party wants a shot at the White House first."
If McTurtle wanted Scalia to ride out Obama's term, he should have tried to pass a law that SCOUTS justices should not be allowed to eat veal scallopini more than once a week or something. Scalia was 79. Not everyone lives beyond that age, even if they are in good health. Both of my parents unfortunately fell into that category.
This is Obama's chance to literally change the course of history. It is his chance to correct an unhealthy rightward shift on the Court wrought by Bush, Sr., Reagan and Cheney (there's no way Bush Lite would have understood a word said in the Oval Office discussions with Roberts or Alito). It will be temporary, even if he succeeds. Bader-Ginsburg is 80 and battling pancreatic cancer. Breyer is nearing 80. The next president, whoever he (or she) is, will probably be nominating at least two new SCOTUS members--more likely three. If it's a Republican, we're screwed again. If we win the White House, we will have a chance to steer American history back leftward the way the radical right has steered it their way for the last decades. (Do I even need to put up a flag here to anyone who claims they won't vote for the Democratic nominee if it's not their first choice?)
This is an unexpected chance for Obama to score one last(-ing) decisive accomplishment in his 8 year quest at damage control. He should take it starting five minutes ago. Do the Republicans want to play the disruptive Party Of No during an election campaign? That may go down well in Mississippi and Oklahoma, but there are plenty of States where they have an interest in not looking like blocking all of the country's business.
Granted, Obama won't have the luxury of picking another "wise Latina," not with a Republican majority in the Senate. But he might get through someone like Steve Breyer, and that would be fine, especially if the nominee is under 60. Law is Obama's area of expertise. There is no excuse (or even a reason) to delay this for even a minute. Cruz and McConnell screaming for a delay is all the more reason for Obama to publicly state that he is working overtime to present a suitable nominee to the Senate ASAP ("I'm going to do MY job, even if I can't force the Senate to do theirs."
. There isn't an American with an IQ over 50 out there who thinks that a Republican president would have delayed for a year the search for a nominee--not with the ideological tilt of the Court hanging in the balance.
There IS one question that none of us can answer, but I'm wildly curious about anyway: WHO will be telling Clarence Thomas how to vote from now on?
= new reply since forum marked as read
Fly on the wall I wish I could be 
However, I still think GOP arguments that Obama shouldn't nominate a candidate for SCOTUS are pure BS.
Dead. I'm DEAD!
