Scalia dead

[GenuineRisk]

Follow up: because I like to google the stuff that gets posted here, I googled the details of Schumer's 2007 speech and, oh, shock of shocks, the site linked to above didn't give the full story:

""We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts of Justice Ginsburg replaced by another Alito. Given the track of this President and the experience of obfuscation at hearings, with respect to the Supreme Court at least, I will recommend to my colleagues that 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 have to prove that they are not.""

From the article (which includes a link to the actual video):

"What Schumer actually said was that Senate Democrats had been hoodwinked by President Bush's first two Supreme Court picks - Roberts and Alito. They'd accepted assurances that they were mainstream conservative judges who would operate with the precedents and decisions of the Rehnquist Court but hadn't. (Certainly, the experience since 2007 has more than ratified this perception.) Schumer said Democrats should try to block any future Bush nominees unless they could prove that they were 'in the mainstream' and would abide by precedent."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/...-actually-said

And I remember all the press about how moderate Roberts was and what total BS that turned out to be. As for Alito- well, I think his decisions probably sound better in the original German.

So yeah. TOTALLY not the same circumstance as what we're seeing today.