What hypocrisy?
Comparing what the GOP did to Merrick Garland to anything Democrats ever did to Reagan or Bush's Supreme Court nominees is just downright dishonest. Democrats never filibustered a Supreme Court nominee. Democrats never refused to hold a hearing on a Supreme Court nominee. Democrats never lied to the American public on the national stage about an imaginary "tradition" of not appointing justices in an election year. What the GOP did was unprecedented in our nation's history, and it is inexcusable. The GOP didn't just obstruct; they flat out refused to do their Constitutional duty.
LOL of course... It's always ok if you do it, but if it is done against you, then it's unfair. Grow up. What Dems did to Nixon and Reagan (and even Bush) was way more unfair then the Garland thing. The GOP did humiliate Garland, yes. But they never smeared him, not even close to the scale of the assasination of Bork.
It was Joe Biden who set the "Biden rule", it was Obama who justified the Biden rule. Maybe Dems should start thinking about the consequences before setting rules ;-)
Nixon, Reagan, and Bush all got to fill all the Supreme Court vacancies that happened on their watch. I don't defend the obstruction in the lower courts that both parties are guilty of. As I said in my previous post, I view that behavior as unconscionable. But the Supreme Court proceedings were always considered above that sort of behavior until now.
And why is Bork the point of comparison? You think Democrats were too hard on Bork? Who cares? Nobody denies that senators have the right to vote against nominees they find unacceptable. So Bork got rejected by a Democratic Senate and Reagan had to go with his second choice (confirmed in an election year I might add). That's how divided government is supposed to work, and the same should have applied to Obama.
Oh, and there was never a "Biden Rule." Yes, Biden once gave a speech expressing concern about what would happen if, hypothetically, a Supreme Court vacancy occurred in the heat of the 1992 campaign shortly after the hotly contested Clarence Thomas confirmation.
1. One senator making a statement does not make policy for a whole party or the Senate or somehow invent the "tradition" that GOP senators pointed to in 2016.
2. Biden never said the seat should be kept vacant so that the next president could make the appointment. What he said was, "It is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns tomorrow, or within the next several weeks, or resigns at the end of the summer, President Bush should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not — and not — name a nominee until after the November election is completed" and "the Senate Judiciary Committee should seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over." In other words, Biden acknowledged that the pick would still be Bush's to make and only suggested that the Senate should put off confirmation hearings until the lame duck session after the election. Biden's words in no way resemble the rhetoric that the likes of McConnell and Cruz used after Scalia's death.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/mar/17/context-biden-rule-supreme-court-nominations/
Your false equivalency game is weak.
Later in his speech, Biden also acknowledged that Bush had the right to make a nomination and that the Senate Judiciary Committee would consider the nomination in that scenario.
Although Biden was Chair of the Judiciary Committee at the time, it's clear that Biden was making up his speech as he went along and that he was speaking solely for himself and not as the Democratic Chair of the Committee.
There was never a 'Biden rule' and any claim otherwise is an outright lie.
