Ron Fournier is the most self-refuting pundit in America. He never quite realizes that the Republicans are able to accomplish one thing, and one thing only. Through their total obstruction, they make it impossible for the president to lead, which then makes the public doubt the president’s leadership qualities. Mr. Fournier is fully capable of documenting the myriad ways that the Republicans are obstructing, failing to offer plausible alternatives or compromises, all the while making insincere and often ludicrous arguments in their own defense. But this never stops him from faulting the president equally, or near-equally, for being unable to overcome this Republican behavior.
This is why Mr. Fournier’s name has become a punch-line. He’s turned himself into a joke. The most glaring example of his both-sides-do-it fallacy in this particular article is his treatment of the Republicans’ decision to filibuster three straight nominees to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
A small but recent example of Republican obstinacy came Monday when Senate Republicans blocked Obama’s third consecutive nominee to the country’s most important Appeals Court. Their argument is ludicrous: The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit does not have a caseload to merit filling the vacancies, Republicans claim. They failed to shrink the court by three seats, so they are blocking the president’s nominees.
This is not about caseloads. Republicans had no trouble with the size of the court under President Bush. The data contradict the case for fewer seats. And all three of Obama’s nominees are qualified for the job. This is pure politics of obstruction.
It brings to mind what House Majority Leader Eric Cantor offered as an excuse for blocking a vote on the Senate’s immigration bill, or even a debate on the subject. “We don’t want a repeat of what’s going on now with Obamacare,” he said.
That’s the GOP motto: If Obama is for it, we’re against it. That may be enough to appease Obama haters who make up a considerable core of the Republican midterm voting bloc. It may be a strategy that works in the short term, given the president’s management failures and deception. But this is the exact wrong way for Republicans to win the emerging generation of voters, the millennials, whom polls show are far more tolerant and practical than GOP leaders in Washington.
In fairness, Democrats encourage bad behavior. For example, Senate Democrats in 2003 blocked President Bush’s nominee to the same District of Columbia Circuit that Obama is now trying to fill. Democrats were in the minority then, and no less narrow-minded or political as Senate Republicans today.
While the Democrats resisted, to one degree or another, many of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees, the only nomination to the DC Circuit who was ultimately blocked was Miguel Estrada. And, while Mr. Estrada was in many ways well-qualified for the job, the Democrats had real concerns about his partisanship because he had refused to hire liberal clerks when he had the job of reviewing them for Justice Anthony Kennedy. In other words, they had an actual reason for opposing Estrada, while the Republicans have no reason for blocking Obama’s picks other than their determination to prevent the seats from being filled. When Estrada removed his name from consideration, the Democrats confirmed his replacement as part of the Gang of 14 deal.
What we are witnessing now is a significant escalation of the obstruction of judicial appointments. It’s not enough to argue that the Democrats started it. The two situations are not equivalent. The Democrats rejected one nominee for cause, the Republicans are rejecting all nominees without cause.
