My first reaction to McConnell's post-nomination press conference was pretty visceral.
WaPo highlights some interesting precedents, though- especially given its reputation for leaning leftward.
Before I cement an opinion, I'd love to hear everybody else's. What are thoughts re. the current standoff?
Your reaction was visceral, because McConnell is a complete piece of shit, and his motivations are as transparent as they always are. That doesn't mean he has to do anything he doesn't want to. If he were a decent strategist, he would have not announced his intentions, but rather just tabled any potential nominee. That he made clear that he is intransigent is almost a gift too good to be true for Democrats. They can yell and scream about fairness, while Obama puts forth a reasonable centrist as his nominee. Then Hillary gets to come in next January and nominate Leon Trotsky or something. McConnell ends up looking like a complete moron, and the court goes from a possible centrist organization (what it should be) to a New Deal-esque court. Anyway, there isn't even any constitutional mandate about how many justices there are supposed to be. Only tradition gives us nine. Roosevelt had a bunch, which he could do, because there was such a heavily Democratic Senate. One would hope for an odd number, but even that's not written into law. If GOP decides that a liberal or even a centrist isn't getting on the court, then that's what's going to happen, even if they decide next year. I personally think it would be fantastic for Leahy to announce that he will filibuster any nomination for potentially 8 years, should a Republican win the White House (which seems unlikely right now, but we all know things can change quickly). That would nicely highlight what jerkoffs McConnell and Grassley look like right now. Still, the tactic of announcing your intransigence is so dumb that I'm not sure it's even true. These guys are savvy enough to know that you don't tip your hand in negotiation. I wouldn't be surprised in the end if that were nothing more than a desperate attempt to get Obama to nominate a centrist. If so, they succeeded. They of course have a way out by simply saying they didn't have faith in Obama to "do the right thing." The only other possible explanation is that they're deluded enough to think that Trump is going to occupy 1600 come January. Doubtful.
What astounded me- and probably shouldn't have- was Paul Ryan's pretty bald statement: I suppose the intended message was something along the lines of, "regardless of nominee, we're still planning on letting the people decide on the blah blah blah blargh puke." As if the people didn't already decide as of last election. Nevertheless, really unfortunate phrasing. Underscores everything that's wrong with the Republican ethos right now. "We don't care who the nominee is, and we're not even prepared to consider qualification or lack thereof. We object on the grounds of who's making the nomination." In my POV, this is an unbelievably, unforgivably close-minded stance, even in light of what we've seen from the Right since Obama took the presidency the first time. It blows my mind that all of this has been kind of taken as matter of course.This has never been about who the nominee is, it is about a basic principle.