So, President Obama Gets Only Three Years?
Obama foiled many right-wing expectations when he chose a popular centrist and consensus builder who has fans in both parties. Do Senate Republicans really expect to do better if, say, Democratic frontrunner Hillary Rodham Clinton wins in November?
Sen. Jeff Flake didn't think so. The Arizona Republican met with Garland last week and suggested a compromise: the judge might be considered in the traditional "lame-duck" period. That's the period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, before the newly elected Congress is seated.
It would be better for Republicans to lock in Obama's centrist choice, Flake reasoned, than take their chances with whomever a new President Clinton might appoint. "If we happen to lose the election," he said, "then I think we ought to push him through quickly, if we can."
That makes sense. But even the possibility of a President Hillary Clinton nominating, say, a radical lefty feminist out of a Rush Limbaugh nightmare did not move McConnell to budge off of his No-Obama-Appointee position.
Gee, if I were President Obama, I might begin after a while to take some of this personally.
I'm reminded of McConnell's declaration in 2010 that "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Instead Obama became the first U.S. president since Ronald Reagan to win more than half of the popular vote in two elections.
But those apparently are not "the people" to whom McConnell cares to listen. Not while the president whom they elected is still in office.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
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