A member of my family challenged me earlier today to recall a statement from a politician that seemed to contradict what President Obama has said about his upcoming nomination for someone to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The president wants the Republican-controlled Senate to give the nomineeĀ a fair and thorough hearing and then a vote in a “timely fashion.” Democrats are angry that GOP senators are pledging that whoever gets the nod won’t get a committee hearing, let alone a vote.
One of those angry Democrats is Vice President Joe Biden.
Oh, but wait. He said something different in 1992 when a Republican was president. Then-Sen. Biden said President George H.W. Bush shouldn’t get a Supreme Court nominee approved in an election year.
My family member brought that statement to my attention and asked me whether I opposed it then.
My answer? I couldn’t remember the statement, let alone what I thought about it at the time.
The vice president has said that the statement has been “taken out of context.” Biden says that he added later in his Senate floor remarks that he’d consider a nominee if he or she were a moderate; Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee at the time.
I, too, believe the Senate should consider a presidential appointment to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Which brings me back to where we started.
We hear so many things through so many channels, venues, forums and information-delivery systems that most of us can’t remember who said what, when they said it and in what context they said it.
If I’d heard itĀ at the time I likely would have condemned it. However, that’s a hypothetical event, which politicians say they dislike. I’ll concede that I probably didn’t hear Sen. Biden say what he’s now acknowledged he said.
Sure, Biden would be wrong — if he favored obstructing future high court nominations and left it at that. He says now he had more to say than what’s being reported.
Fine …
None of thisĀ justifies today’s Senate leadership vow to obstruct the current president from filling a seat on the Supreme Court.