All sides came together Saturday for the funeral of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last week while on a hunting trip in Texas. The long-serving conservative justice was liked and admired by liberals as well as conservatives. Noticeably absent was President Obama, who, by virtually all accounts missed a golden opportunity to bridge a partisan divide, choosing instead to do the polar opposite of what he has often preached since he first ran for president in 2008 and to ignore his promise to bring people together instead of dividing them. At center are members of the Supreme Court. (Photo/Jack Gruber, USA Today)

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES NEVER
ALLOW FACTS TO STAND IN THE WAY
OF INFLAMING CAMPAIGN RHETORIC

An up-and-coming blowhard
 
By David Maril
 
Is hypocrisy a prerequisite for politicians?  Do political candidates need to follow any standards of accuracy in comments they make when seeking votes for elected positions?

Bernie Sanders is viewed as a breath of fresh air because of his outspoken, theatrical demeanor.

Even though he has spent decades of his life getting very little done in Congress, he portrays himself as a Washington outsider.

But to the surprise of many political observers, this 74-year-old Socialist is mounting a serious threat to preventing an easy anointment of Hillary Clinton as the presidential nominee of the Democrats.

However, even this “tell-it-like-it-is” candidate resorted to old political hack tricks by accusing Clinton of attempting to portray herself as being closer than she actually is to President Barack Obama simply to curry favor with minority voters.

If he really believes this, how does he justify pandering to the Rev. Al Sharpton, paying a visit to this media publicity hound for an endorsement to increase his support from minority voters?

Hillary Clinton? — She, as an old friend of mine used to say, makes dancer Fred Astaire look as stationary as the Washington Monument when it comes to her fancy footwork, shifting positions with double-talk.

A veteran of political campaigns, she broke, even for her, new ground by originally labeling herself a “moderate” one day… and then, seeing that wasn’t fashionable anymore, insisting she is a “progressive.”

Over on the Republican side, the candidates, except for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, are so irresponsible in their remarks, an army of fact-checkers could be gainfully employed to track all the fiction they are circulating.

Donald Trump, the charismatic bully who is the Republican front-runner in the current presiden- tial sweepstakes, cemented his lead by winning big in Saturday’s South Carolina GOP primary.

Donald Trump, the charismatic bully who is the GOP presidential leader, has never passed on the opportunity to include questionable exaggerations or unsubstantiated criticisms as part of his daily campaign talking points.

Marco Rubio, an up-and-coming blowhard, is working hard on his attack-without-accurate-facts game.

Ted Cruz, trying to capitalize on his untrustworthiness and unlikeability among his peers, has no qualms about fabricating myths.

He still insists CNN reported Bernie Sanders was dropping out of the race. And this is why his campaign workers telephoned Iowa voters who were supporting Sanders to have them switch to Cruz.

No such report was ever aired by CNN.

As un-presidential as these candidates of both parties seem, there can no longer be any doubt as to why disillusioned voters are flocking to politicians who offer angry rhetoric but few workable solutions.

It is easy to see why the Washington establishment has so little credibility when you observe the group of self-righteous hypocrites disguised as congressional leaders, who are staking out their positions on filling the vacant Supreme Court justice seat of the late Antonin Scalia.

The Republicans, who are adamant about automatically rejecting any nomination Obama makes, pontificate about how a lame duck Commander-in-Chief should not have the power to assert so much influence on the court in his final year in office.

Suddenly pretending they care about serving the voters, they insist the people should decide by who they elect as the next President.

If a Democrat returns to the White House, and the party regains control of the Senate, a liberal jurist will be picked. But if a Republican wins, the conservatives will have their say.

One question never addressed by this line of reasoning is where the Constitution specifies at what point in serving out a term the President should no longer appoint Supreme Court justices.

Is it with less than a year left?

Or 14 months?

Maybe it should be 16 months?

And if the public’s having a vote in the process is important, wasn’t the President elected by the American people to make these decisions in the first place?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, trying to convince his party’s hot-air presidential hopefuls who are further to the right, that he is a true conservative himself, insists there won’t be any confirmation hearings.

A BORN-AGAIN ‘MAN OF THE PEOPLE’

But what McConnell, a born-again “man of the people,” hopes everyone forgets is that whenever the Republicans have a lame duck President of their own and the Democrats try to filibuster or wreck the nomination process, they scream about injustice and preventing what is supposed to be done.

However, the Republicans don’t hold the patent on hypocrisy. The Democrats are just as bad.

If Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid would take a moment to pause from his sanctimonious sermonizing about the evils of what the Republicans are doing to the process, he might explain why he has a track record of the same obstructionism when the party situations are reversed.

Politics is the priority when it comes to the top court of justice.

And don’t shed too much sympathy for Obama having to battle partisan politics to even draw a hearing on one of his nominations. When he was a U.S. Senator, he went on record as voting against now-Chief Justice John Roberts strictly for political reasons, despite admitting he was a well-qualified candidate.

It will be interesting to see how Obama attempts to navigate through this partisan quagmire.

The proper move, for the good of the country, would be to try to introduce a precedent of removing some of the political influences from the process.

A FLAWLESS, WELL-QUALIFIED CENTRIST CANDIDATE

He could do this by nominating a flawless, well-qualified centrist candidate who defies categorization as a liberal or conservative.

Worst-case scenario, if this type of quality candidate is rejected he will gain respect from a wider spectrum and have the court of public opinion on his side.

If he decides to play the political game and nominate a left-leaning candidate to replace the conservative Scalia, he accomplishes nothing and is just making a statement to fire up his party’s base.

Wouldn’t it be an interesting change if, in the future, the makeup of the Supreme Court became one conservative, one liberal, and seven other jurists who had impressive legal minds, were open- minded, reasonable, and not associated with any specific political ideologies?

This way, reason, logic and fairness might have a chance of winning out over the politics from divided government and too many politicians who are more loyal to their party than their country.
 
davidmaril@voiceofbaltimore.org
 
“Inside Pitch” is a weekly opinion column written for Voice of Baltimore by David Maril.
 
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