President Obama set a confrontation with Senate Republicans in motion on Tuesday morning by naming a slate of judges to a top appeals court and daring his rivals to block their confirmations.
In a formal Rose Garden ceremony normally reserved for Supreme Court nominees and prominent cabinet members, Mr. Obama announced plans to nominate three people to fill the remaining vacancies on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The president called on Republicans to abandon what he called partisan obstruction of his judicial nominees and approve his nominees quickly.
“This is not about principled opposition. It’s about partisan obstruction,” Mr. Obama said. “What’s happening now is unprecedented. For the good of the American people it has to stop.”
“What I’m doing today is my job,” Mr. Obama said as he announced the nominations. “What I need is the Senate to do its job.”
By nominating the judges as a group, the president is trying to restore what his allies consider to be ideological balance on a crucial court that has overturned some important parts of his first-term agenda. And he hopes to heighten public anger at Republicans for repeatedly using the threat of filibuster to block his choices for the cabinet and the courts.
The effort could culminate this summer in a legislative collision between the two parties as the Democratic and Republican leadership clash over how and whether to rewrite long-standing procedural rules that could permanently change the dynamic in the chamber.
Only in the Beltway Media could the President doing his constitutionally approved duties be considered picking a fight. But, you know, both sides do it, so, let’s just move along.
Nothing is going to change if Republicans continue to be rewarded for their obstructionist tactics and slash and burn approach to governance. And as long as the stenographers keep writing vapid pieces like this, they are just going to keep on keeping on.
Redshirt
Republicans are going to do what they’re going to do – that’s what they are.
The real question is: How do you change the media narrative?
One suggestion: Limit ownership.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Two women and a black guy…
Nah, the wingnuts won’t have a problem here…
gogol's wife
The New York Times constantly does this! Your post is spot-on.
Yesterday Michiko Kakutani criticized Jonathan Alter’s book on the 2012 campaign because it didn’t deal with Benghazi.
catclub
“The effort could culminate this summer in a legislative collision between the two parties as the Democratic and Republican leadership clash over how and whether to rewrite long-standing procedural rules that could permanently change the dynamic in the chamber.”
Singularly uninformative. No legislation was harmed in approving a judicial nominee.
schrodinger's cat
The Beltway media is a disgrace.
Cacti
@catclub:
Oh sure. Next you’ll tell me that the Senators can walk and chew gum at the same time.
dedc79
Still waiting for Slate article on why federal court vacancies are surprisingly a good thing for America
SatanicPanic
Obama gets out of bed and goes to work in the morning, setting up battle
Mary G
I’m glad he’s finally decided to take the gloves off and go at them. I think it’ll help down the line, because the Republicans can ‘t seem to stop themselves saying stupid things.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
While I agree that the msm is once again siding with the Republicans, Obama has set up the Republicans to have to come out and say “We refuse to do our jobs.”
We have to make sure Reid doesn’t buckle again.
Punchy
Just wait until he picks a fight with the Republican janitor by pooping in the White House bathroom.
MikeJ
Not approved, required.
dedc79
Real journalism would look at how long the seats have been vacant, how vacancies were treated under prior administrations, how many nominees republicans have blocked to date, how busy the dc circuit docket is. Fake journalists just hand Chuck Grassley a microphone and transcribe his rantings into an article.
beltane
In Turkey, protesters have targeted the media for their complicity/cowardice in covering the government’s actions. This type of contempt for a corrupt, dishonorable media is a good start and we might want to think about emulating it. Too many people here think that the media is “lazy” or “not doing their job”, which avoids the depth of the problem completely. They do their jobs all to well and out country is suffering for it.
terraformer
Always remember that corporate media and many other avenues for (what passes for) news and information exist to disseminate preferred narratives. No one who wants to or can challenge that is around anymore, or they have been moved to comparatively powerless positions. They’ll never substantively challenge the status quo because they’re paid not to.
terraformer
Always remember that corporate media and many other avenues for (what passes for) news and information exist to disseminate preferred narratives. No one who wants to or can challenge that is around anymore, or they have been moved to comparatively powerless positions. They’ll never substantively challenge the status quo because they’re paid not to.
Chris T.
Ah, but you see, he’s not merely “doing his job”, he’s pointed out that they are not doing theirs! Pointing out the blindingly obvious that the press keep failing to point out, why, that’s “picking a fight”!
gogol's wife
@dedc79:
I think they must get a firestorm of e-mails every time they try to do real journalism. The cowardice just drips from their political reporting. It’s sad, because they have some very courageous people reporting from overseas.
Citizen_X
Oh, President Obama nominated 3 judges for Federal court? HOW DARE HE!
BTW, “his rivals?” WTF? He’s not running for election again, NYT.
TG Chicago
Given that this has long been true and been made abundantly clear in the past few years, we have two options to consider:
A) The press corps is made up mostly of idiots.
B) The press corps is made up mostly of people who are satisfied with this outcome.
I don’t believe A is true. There are plenty of bonafide idiots, yes, but I don’t think they’re a majority.
So we’re left with B. That’s our “liberal” media.
gbear
@Cacti: Al Franken can walk, chew gum, and draw an accurate freehand map of the USA all at the same time.
dedc79
@gogol’s wife: I agree, it’s the political coverage specifically that has gotten increasingly, well, politico-ish.
burnspbesq
The headline is accurate, as far as it goes. There is going to be a brouhaha over these nominations.
If you really think the headline should carry more detail about why this brouhaha is taking place, and why it should not take place, then I think you’ve lost sight of the meaning of the word “headline.”
grandpa john
I’ll say it again, the achievement of third world status by the US will be as much the fault of our media as it will the republican party if not more so. Until Americans determine to completely ignore and turn off the MSM , this near treasonous bullshit will continue to pour forth from these bought and paid for hacks and and stooges.
gbear
@gogol’s wife: If you go to the ‘readers’ picks’ version of the comments at the NYT, you usually find the paper getting called out for not getting the story right. Those are the only comments I bother with at the NYT. They seem to be filtered by smart people.
Maude
Another article explaining why Obama is uppity.
Ivan X
Ok, flame on, but the article is accurate. Obama strategized both the scheduling and the style of the announcements in order to make the Republicans put up or shut up. That’s a confrontation, and it’s fair to describe it as such.
The problem is the usual mindless absence of context. The article fails to point out how it is an entirely provoked and reasonable confrontation.
Punchy
@burnspbesq: Who the fuck said this was about the headline? Pretty sure Johnny bolded the text within the body of the article that he finds distasteful. But that truism wouldn’t allow you to be so dismissive, pompous and condescending, so just keep on ignoring it.
lamh35
I’m shocked nobody’s posted about Christie yet. I hear Christie basically chickened out on making a “controversial” choice. Booman has an interesting article on a possible reason why Christie made the decision he did. Loved to hear what ya’ll think:
Christie is So Screwed
by BooMan
Oh, but I thought Christie was a stubborn mofo who ain’t scared to tell anyone off.
dedc79
@Ivan X: How about quoting grassley/republican claims that Obama is “packing” the court without noting what the term actually means and what it’s history is? I think that’s enough missing context to make the article inaccurate.
Lurking Canadian
@grandpa john: I agree. The nutjobs in the GOP wouldn’t be dangerous if the media had the collective guts to call a spade a shovel.
El Cid
How DARE he consider nominating 3 people to fill 3 vacant positions??? The nerve of that
uppityinsouciant Kenyan!El Cid
@dedc79: If you really want to bug them, point out that FDR’s supposedly failed ‘court-packing’ worked, and the then-Tea Party style Supreme Court stopped ruling every bit of the New Deal out as un-Constitutional.
Mike in NC
For an excellent example of how this is done locally, Governor Pat “Asshole” McCrory and his cronies in Raleigh decided to simply cancel the Federally-funded Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program effective July 1st. It wouldn’t have cost the state a dime, but it was just another way to give the finger to the Uppity One, and the thousands of people affected are merely pawns.
geg6
OT, but I again implore you to read your email, Cole.
Lurking Canadian
@El Cid: Well, you have to consider that he did it without asking Lindsey Graham and John NcCain out for cocktails first, so it’s basically almost as Stalinist as a free bicycle program.
cleek
@dedc79:
from the article:
Cacti
@dedc79:
But it’s inherently provocative for President Obama to exercise the explicit constitutional powers of his office because, Blackity-black.
Cacti
@cleek:
And if he’d named nominees for openings in other Circuits, it would be…
“It’s hard to imagine the rationale for nominating _________ judges at once for this court, given the three vacancies on the very important District of Columbia Circuit.”
Josie
@burnspbesq: It is not accurate. The president is not the one setting up this battle. The republicans in the senate set up this battle by refusing to permit most of his nominees to have an up or down vote. A proper headline would say, “President Obama Nominates Three Respected Attorneys to the DC Circuit Court,” or something similar.
Berial
@cleek: I think the part you quoted is EXACTLY what dedc79 was pissed about. They let that Grassley quote go without pointing out ‘pack’ doesn’t mean what he’s implying.
gogol's wife
@Berial:
yeah, I think he was supporting dedc79’s point.
grandpa john
@dedc79: an d of course stupid asshole repubs like grassley are too dumb to understand they are u sing the wrong term, You can ‘t pack a court that has a set number of positions, you can however shift the balance of power by selections of members of one party. Of course I don’t remember any of the dumbasses bitching about “packing” the court when bush selected three rightwing justices for the SC
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@cleek: Yet, somehow, preventing appointees to the court is not advancing a policy agenda.
Citizen_X
@Josie: “Nation Elects Lincoln, Setting Up Civil War.”
Berial
@gogol’s wife: You are probably right, and I missed his intention.
Cacti
@grandpa john:
I wonder if Grassley even knows that the number of SCOTUS justices and federal circuit judges is established by statute, not the constitution, and can be expanded at any time by act of Congress.
liberal
@dedc79:
The problem is that the media dumb$hits aren’t allowed to use the word “lie”. Which is exactly what the court packing allegation crap is.
mouse tolliver
Just today I saw weepy Tea Partyers at a hearing whaling about a tyrannical government. Because having to answer a few extra questions when your political group tries to get a tax break that political groups aren’t supposed to get is fascism.
Meanwhile, down in North Carolina, over 300 protestors from the NAACP have been arrested and carted off to jail for staging demonstrations against policies that hurt the poor and weaken voting rights. But somehow that’s not framed as tyranny.
If you can ever manage to get the press to notice the leftwing protests that result in tazing or pepper spraying or beatings and arrests. It never gets framed as tyranny.
liberal
@TG Chicago:
Well…ultimately, of course, these people are going to do the bidding of their corporate masters, regardless of their IQ, but does anyone here really think that most of the top echelon of the press corp is particularly bright? Dancin’ Dave, for instance?
kindness
As we speak Senator McConnell is looking for a good place to start the next series of fires. He asked me if I had a lighter he could borrow and I told him as a good
socialistliberal I wouldn’t give aSenatorFascist like him the time of day.Cacti
@mouse tolliver:
And it’s entirely reasonable for these arrestees to be compelled to provide a DNA specimen for law enforcement to hold in perpetuity.
liberal
@mouse tolliver:
What galls me isn’t the fascists mewling about their rights being abridged, but rather the morons in the press who agree with them. E.g. the WashPost has a local columnist named Robert McCartney who, AFAICT, is pretty liberal in his policy positions, yet he seemed to agree that there was no question that what the IRS did was with a purpose and was outrageous.
Ivan X
@dedc79:
I agree that it was chickenshit to put “pack” in quotes, suggesting that, even worse, the author knows that it doesn’t mean what Grassley wants you to think it means. It’s not like the article is some model of reportorial courage; it lets the Republicans say whatever lies they want to, as these pieces always do. Both sides do it.
But with that said, John’s beef was the article’s description of the President’s actions as setting up a confrontation. But that’s what Obama has done. The article’s cowardice is in failing to show that the confrontation was provoked and warranted.
Villago Delenda Est
Yeah, like the Rethug scum would do anything BUT stall on confirmation.
The Villagers are useless, parasitical vermin. Wipe them out. All of them.
SatanicPanic
@liberal:
I hope not. John King and Wolf Blitzer probably couldn’t put their heads together and finish an 8th grade level social studies course.
grandpa john
@Cacti: Yes, this is what FDR tried to do, get congress to increase the number of justices from 9 to I believe it was 15. This would have allowed him to make 6 new appointments which would then give a balance of power to the liberal minded justices ,since all his appointments would be of judges that agreed with him and who would support all his provisions in his “New Deal” .provisions that the current conservative balanced court were ruling as unconstitutional.
Villago Delenda Est
@burnspbesq:
Duh.
Anything that damn near sheriff does is going to cause fascist, racist fucks like the McConnell shitstain to get their fucking panties in a bunch.
Villago Delenda Est
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Doesn’t matter. The vermin of the Village will not cover that. They never do. They’ll ask Rand Paul and Darrel Issa what they “think”.
dedc79
@Ivan X: The grassley proposal is the real “provocation” – it’s a kind of reverse FDR. FDR wanted to add Supreme Court seats to tip the balance, while Grassley wants to eliminate seats on the DC Circuit to preserve its conservative leaning. So Grassley, recognizing what a bunch of stooges the political press are, labels Obama’s move as court packing and acts like Obama’s provoking this whole fight, knowing that the media will just regurgitate whatever he says.
kc
Obama is so arrogant. It’s like he thinks he’s the President or something.
Villago Delenda Est
@SatanicPanic:
They do not need to be bright. They need to be telegenic.
Chris
@beltane:
No, the real problem even today is that people (and not just 27%ers) think it’s liberally biased.
kyle
If they were being stenographers, they would just repeat what the president said. Instead they’re adopting a framing that’s different than his.
You must use your cliches with greater care.
dedc79
@liberal: Hell, I’d settle for them following Grassley’s quote with enough background to make clear to the reader that Grassley is full of it. There are going to be readers who won’t connect the dots even then, but that’s another problem.
Ivan X
@dedc79:
I’m not disagreeing with you. The article, as is typical of beltway bullshit, fails in its reportorial obligation to show that Obama didn’t start the fight; he was repeatedly provoked to this (not only by Grassley, but by the Senate Republicans for his entire tenure). I’ve said this three times now.
I’m also acknowledging that what Obama is doing is confrontational (by design) and the article is not wrong for calling it that.
What part of what I’m saying are you taking issue with?
sharl
@gogol’s wife:
Ah, Michiko Kakutani. Some people have color blindness, while on-the-NYT-payroll book reviewers have footnote blindness, at least a politically selective version of it.
[I originally thought Kakutani reviewed Ann Coulter’s Slander, but that was NYT’s Janet Maslin, another one with selective footnote blindness.]
RaflW
It’s just like in the schoolyard: The bully picks on the target over and over and there’s no repercussions. Once the kid has had (more than) enough, and takes a poke at the bully, the kid goes to the principals office. Maybe the bully does too, but the stern hand of seriousness (aka the idiot dissembling of the Village) has meted out justice for the kid taking “the first swing.”
It was bullshit in 4th grade, and it’s gold plated bullshit now. We who are witnessing the victim appropriately defending himself need to speak up. As gogol’s wife notes, the wingers no doubt savage the Times for all it’s alleged sins of librulizmzzm.
lumpkin
Since fucking when was it controversial for the president to nominate people to fill openings in the judiciary? If this is the perspective of “even the liberal NYT” , we are good and truly screwed as a nation.
The Other Chuck
You know, appointments are supposed to be made with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. It seems to me that by refusing to hold a vote, the Senate has waived its “advice and consent” role. Now the wingnut SCOTUS would never see it that way, but wouldn’t it be a nice sermon to shout from the bully pulpit? Not just “do nothing senate”, but “abdicated its very job” senate. And of course, fixing the senate means fixing its rather undemocratic rules that prevent it from doing its job, right?
Yeah, too hoity toity intellectual, only the totebagger crowd, blah blah. Stupid is sinking this nation.
I’m listening to The History of Rome podcast series, and I’m noticing that the main reason Julius Ceasar was able to sieze and hold power was that the Senate was already widely regarded by all levels — except of course the Senate itself — as a bunch of useless wastes of space.
Hal
The court packing accusation is hilarious. FDR’s legislation kept getting overturned, so he threatened to increase the number of Justices on the SC in order to keep the New Deal in place. He essentially tried to fundamentally alter the Supreme Court, while Obama is simply doing what he is required to do.
RaflW
@mouse tolliver:
Well, geez they’re just getting what’s coming to them for grossly abusing the right of free assembly. Or something.
The press is instantly bored with lefties and blahs protesting. It’s so, I dunno, 1973. But Tea Partiers being oppressed by the IRS, that’s new! and shiny! and a refreshing take on the ordinary! and low cal! and delicious!
F**ing wankers.
pseudonymous in nc
@gogol’s wife:
That’s to be filed under “nit-picklering”, named after Nedra Pickler.
Gin & Tonic
This is for Cole. A JetBlue pilot on a flight back to Boston heard a crying baby and got on the intercom to ask if it was Sidney Crosby.
Quaker in a Basement
A fine example of “let’s-you-and-him-fight” journalism.
gene108
I don’t get what is meant by Republicans paying for this behavior?
Their base wants them to do more, not less, to cripple the Obama Administration. This is the bare minimum their supporters expect from their elected officials.
The ideal woul be to impeach Obama and Biden, so Boehner can become President (a squishy RINO like Boehner is still better than Odumbo and Biden).
JWL
“This is not about principled opposition. It’s about partisan obstruction,” Mr. Obama said. “What’s happening now is unprecedented. For the good of the American people it has to stop.”
Well, it’s certainly not how I would have phrased it (i.e., “This is not about principled opposition. These are evil, fascist, motherfucking obstructionists, intent on destroying the Republic”).
But it’s not bad, and it’s about time.
fuckwit
This is what the media does! THEY LOVE A FIGHT! Everything is a fight, a conflict, a contest. It’s all about conflict. They’re fucking drama addicts… because drama, if you’re not already familiar with the term, is a form of entertainment.
The media are ENTERTAINERS. A drama needs conflict in order to be entertaining. So does any sport! A good game needs to be a tough match-up, or a long rivalry, or something dramatic. It’s entertainment. WIthout drama, there’s nothing exciting about it. This is also why the media are such fucking warmongers– can’t have any more drama, suspence, and conflict than a WAR can you? They eat that shit up.
The Rethugs have figured this out, and they use it to manipulate the media all the damn time. It’s how they sell wars, it’s how they sell the “both sides do it”, it’s how they sell gridlock, it’s how they are destroying goverment by the people.
They give the media their EPIC BATTLE! And the media says, yes, yes, more please more!
I’m so fucking tired of it I could spit.
Another Halocene Human
You know, I’ve been kind of wondering about the rage against the village on this blog. Like, it seemed excessive. To be fair, I rarely watch any sort of news program on tv since TDS jumped the shark (and especially since UP w/Chris Hayes and the Ed Show, which I loved to use as background noise while doing laundry/vacuuming, went away–sorry MHP, I miss you).
So, I did some errands and left public radio on. OMG WTF FAILSAUCE IS THIS. “Debate” between one Nice Polite Republican moderated by another Nice Polite Republican, with opposition by a Polite, Yet Unarguably Racist Republican. AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!
They were discussing that Texas “top ten” case without ever, you know, acknowledging the FACTS about the case. The racist guy was talking about kids from the bottom of the class flaming out in college FUCK NO THEY ARE FROM THE TOP OF THE CLASS BY DEFINITION YOU LYING SHITWEASEL. WEASELS RUN FROM YOUR COMPANY.
The other Republican was arguing that business likes integration so let’s do it for business NOT GEE THIS CASE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH RACE UNLESS YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT TEXAS SCHOOLS ARE NOT DESEGREGATED if the howaite race is really superior then just desegregate the public schools and the white cream will rise to the top motherfuckers GOD I HATE EVERYTHING!!!
I don’t like the AA-oriented talk available (Tom Joyner Morning, I think?) and they took away the classical waaa waaa waaa. Sometimes there is crunchy lefty talk on the super sekrit low power station and weird hours but the rest of the time it’s some smarmy evangelical shit and my click luck has been bad lately.
eemom
You are spot on about this, Cole. The emmessemm whoredom to republican shillery may be a degree or two less glaringly obvious in this particular headline than in others, but that makes it all the more insidious.
@gogol’s wife:
That is well and truly despicable for a purported literary critic. Fuck her.
gogol's wife
@eemom:
My characterization may be a little imprecise, but here’s the passage that made me see red:
“Mr. Alter does not offer a real assessment of Mr. Obama’s handling of important second-term issues like immigration reform and gun control. And while the book mentions in passing the debate surrounding the attacks on the United States Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, it went to press too early to grapple with the two other controversies swirling around the White House: that is, revelations that the Internal Revenue Service singled out conservative groups for special scrutiny and that the Justice Department had seized the phone records of journalists at The Associated Press.
Indeed, the problems with ‘The Center Holds’ — which draws upon interviews with more than 200 people — underscore the difficulties faced by even the most astute reporters writing what the author calls ‘contemporary history.’ Especially at a time when there is wall-to-wall, 24/7 news coverage online and on TV, and when one narrative — concerning, say, Mr. Obama’s resounding victory in last fall’s election — can so quickly give way to another one of gridlock and dysfunction.”
So he didn’t include the most recent NYTimes narrative. Big flaw in his book.
Baud
@gogol’s wife:
LOL. So Alter’s book sucks because he doesn’t engage in enough prophesy?
eemom
@gogol’s wife:
I think your characterization of her bullshit was spot on, as well.
A kind interpretation — were I inclined to provide one, which I am not — is that being a “literary critic”, she doesn’t actually know shit about politics, and therefore felt the need to resort to the standard false equivalence to conceal her ignorance about the subject of this particular book.
gogol's wife
@eemom:
She constantly pontificates about politics. The only worse critic in their stable is Alessandra Stanley. I’ll never forgive her for comparing “Downton Abbey” to “Fifty Shades of Grey” for no discernible reason but that she wanted to talk about “Fifty Shades of Grey.”
pseudonymous in nc
Michiko Kakutani’s review doesn’t spend any time discussing the lemon that got rammed up her sphincter this morning. As such, it is worthless.
mouse tolliver
@Villago Delenda Est:
“What does your gut tell you?” Actually question asked by rapist apologist Candy Crowley of Darrel Issa over the weekend. The media doesn’t even demand facts from the right.
Also a couple of weeks ago one of MSNBC’s daytime hosts asked a Republican a legal questino that the Republican wasn’t qualified to answer. The Repub was actually honest enough to admit he wasn’t knowledgeable of the subject. But the host insisted that he answer the question anyway. So the Repub just pulled an answer out of his ass.
TG Chicago
@liberal: Interesting point. Do the corporate masters intentionally let the crap rise to the top, thus making it easier to control the system? Seems a bit more conspiratorial than I’m willing to sign on to, but I can’t dismiss it.