Let’s add a line to Vice President Mike Pence’s statement about the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court as reported in The Columbian, (“Pence vows Gorsuch will join high court,” Feb. 5). Pence said, “This seat does not belong to any party or any ideology or any interest group. This seat on the Supreme Court belongs to the American people, and the American people deserve a vote on the floor of the United States Senate.” To that let’s add “unless that person is nominated by a Democrat.”
Words like those added to Pence’s remarks are extremely logical and consistent with the Republican Party’s blockage of the nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. In Judge Garland’s case the Senate Republicans had no interest in the rights of the American people. Garland was well-qualified but received no hearings, no vote on the Senate floor. He was simply seen by Republicans as too liberal and blocked.
Now Republicans consult the right of the American people to a qualified (meaning “conservative”) Supreme Court nominee, and in spite of the fact that they denied the American people that same right during the Obama administration, they insist on it now — with a straight face.
The hypocrisy is astounding, the politics are obvious, and the insult to the intelligence of the American people is astonishing.
