Court: Krauthammer forgot McConnell's words

Charles Krauthammer is usually such a fair and balanced guy, but in his column (TNT, 2-19) on why President Obama shouldn’t be allowed to fulfill his duties as president and nominate a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia, Krauthammer forgot to quote an important Republican.

In 1970, Mitch McConnell submitted an article to the Kentucky Law Journal (Vol. 59) in which he wrote: “The Senate should discount the philosophy of the nominee. . . . The president is presumably elected by the people to carry out a program and altering the ideological directions of the Supreme Court would seem to be a perfectly legitimate part of a presidential platform.”

In May 2005, McConnell is quoted (in States News Service) as saying, “Any presidential judicial nominee should receive careful consideration. But after the debate, they deserve a simple up-or-down vote. . . . It is time to move away from advise and obstruct and get back to advise and consent.”

This story was originally published February 19, 2016 at 12:51 PM with the headline "Court: Krauthammer forgot McConnell's words."