Does Biden Seriously Believe Mitch McConnell Has Become an Honest Broker?
McConnell "promises to refuse to obstruct future judicial nominations" if Biden approves an anti-choice judge. What are the odds McConnell had his fingers crossed behind his back?
Here’s one thing on which republicans and Democrats can agree: they both feel betrayed over President Joe Biden’s recent compromise with Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell over a potential federal judicial appointee.
According to the right-wing website Town Hall, Biden’s negotiation with McConnell over anti-abortion choice lawyer Chad Meredith’s consideration for a federal judgeship in Kentucky is just one more “source of my heartburn lately.”
Liberals and progressives, though, are apoplectic Biden is even considering offering a forced-birther a seat on the federal bench.
The problem for Democrats is Biden is compromising on this.
The problem for republicans is that McConnell is compromising—period.
Biden and McConnell supposedly hammered out a deal to advance Meredith’s approval to the Senate on the condition McConnell refuses to obstruct future judicial nominations, a promise some view as something McConnell made with his fingers crossed behind his back.
Sen. “The Grim Reaper” McConnell dusted off the Obama-era playbook last year when he made it clear “the era of bipartisanship on this stuff is over.”
Since Barack Obama took office in 2009, the level of republican obstruction has intensified so much to the point that some GOP lawmakers even refused to support common-sense legislation to help low-income women obtain baby formula during the recent baby formula shortage.
Every House republican voted against giving Biden “authority to declare an energy emergency that would make it unlawful to increase gasoline and home energy fuel prices in an ‘excessive’ or exploitative manner.”
Last month, new gun control legislation, the Safer Communities Act, passed the Senate 65 to 33.
The majority of Republican members opposed it.
After the Uvalde, Texas elementary school massacre, The New York Times reported that while Sen. McConnell stated he was “horrified and heartbroken” by the shooting responsible for the slaughter of at least 18 children and a teacher, “the Kentucky Republican, like many others in his party who publicly expressed their dismay, gave no indication that he was dropping his longstanding opposition to gun control measures.”
After the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) overturned its 1973 Roe versus Wade decision, McConnell compared the decision to the 1954 Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education ruling desegregating schools.
In October, responding to the demise of the Freedom to Vote Act, McConnell chided:
"The latest umpteenth iteration is only a compromise in the sense that the left and the far left argued among themselves about exactly how much power to grab and in which areas. As long as Senate Democrats remain fixated on their radical agenda, this body will continue to do the job the Framers assigned it--and stop terrible ideas in their tracks."
In 2019, before Biden was elected, McConnell laughed about obstructing former President Obama, most notably on Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the SCOTUS to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. McConnell refused to even allow hearings, basically ignoring the vacancy hoping a republican would succeed Obama.
One did.
His name was Donald Trump, and he got to ram through three SCOTUS nominees and scores of federal judges in four years.
So what makes Biden think McConnell isn’t going to play Lucy yanking the football away from Charlie Brown again, as he has bragged about doing?
Image credit: Fabius Maximus
President Biden has been vociferous in his disappointment over the SCOTUS’ canceling federal protections of abortion rights.
Last week, he issued an executive order instructing Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra to ensure abortion access that includes expanding availability of medication abortion and access “to the full range of reproductive health services,” including “emergency contraception and long-acting reversible contraception like intrauterine devices (IUDs).”
Yet the White House is privately indicating its intend to move forward on Chad Meredith’s nomination, believing McConnell is finally sincere.
This is not a good look for an incumbent president new polls indicate 64% of Democrats want to replace.
With all of Biden’s accomplishments and Congress (narrowly) in Democrats’ hands, we should not be bending over backwards—again—placating republicans.
They have made it abundantly clear they see comprise as “weakness.”
They aren’t interested in being honest brokers.
Why do we keep assuming they are?
They keep moving further to the right, and we follow them.