By Steve Hunley

The national media is already doing all it can to buck up President Barak Obama in the pending battle to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court. Republicans are being heckled and attacked because of their obvious reluctance to approve Obama’s nomination. We’re hearing a lot about the United States Senate’s role of “advising and consenting.” Well, of course the Senate does not have to consent, nor should it.

At the bottom of all the rhetoric is ideology; with the Supreme Court almost entirely divided between ultra-liberals and conservatives, the next appointee will almost certainly tip the balance of power. Many Democrats who don’t either like or admire Hillary Clinton remind themselves the presidential election is less about the presidency than the fact there are three justices poised to retire. Stephen Beyer will soon be 78 years old; Ruth Bader Ginsburg turned 83 years old last Tuesday; Anthony Kennedy will turn 80 before America elects a new president.

Now Democrats and their allies in the national media are trying to paint Republicans as mean obstructionists who are trying to block a nominee from fair consideration. It’s not like the Democrats haven’t done exactly the same thing when they were in the majority and there was a Republican president. Obama filibustered Judge Samuel Alito’s nomination to the U. S. Supreme Court while serving as a senator. Obama tried to block confirmation of judges William Pryor, Janice Rogers Brown and Leslie Southwick while he was in the Senate. Obama’s press secretary tells us Obama now “regrets” his actions, eight years later and while, coincidentally, the shoe is on the other foot. Once again, hypocrisy is nothing new to politics. Eighteen months before the close of President George Bush’s term office, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York publicly stated, “We should not confirm any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court except in extraordinary circumstances.” Just days ago, Schumer is singing a different tune, saying it is the Senate’s responsibility to hold hearing and move the process along. Go back even farther to 1992 when Democrats, the majority in both houses of Congress and the elder George Bush was President of the United States. Senate Democrats deliberately postponed consideration of 50 judicial nominees in anticipation Bill Clinton would win the presidency that year. Only one judicial nominee was confirmed by the Senate after September 9, 1992. Edward Carnes had been nominated in January of that year and his nomination was filibustered by Senate Democrats. Carnes was finally confirmed and the rest of the vacant judgeships were filled by President Bill Clinton.

Then-Senator Joe Biden flatly said in 1992 that the Democratic controlled Senate should not confirm any of President Bush’s judicial nominees, unless they suited the Democrats. Yet, President Obama proposes no such accommodation to Senate Republicans now.

Barack Obama tested the limits of his power when he made “recess” appointments, as allowed under the Constitution, but he chose to make them while the U. S. Senate was still in session. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously, 9 – 0, that Obama had violated the Constitution.

When you know liberals won’t fight fairly, it is time to hold them accountable and expose them for the hypocrites that they are.