He had just revealed his Supreme Court nominee in the Rose Garden, and as he began his next meeting with progressive legal activists in the Roosevelt Room, he couldn’t stop rhapsodizing about his choice to cap his judicial legacy. Merrick Garland was Obama’s kind of judge—a meritocrat with two Harvard degrees who had served 18 years on America’s second-highest court; a mensch who tutored inner-city kids and had just wept while discussing his family; and a moderate cited by Republican leaders as the kind of non-controversial, non-ideological judge Obama ought to pick for the Court.
Now the Republicans were vowing to block anyone Obama picked, and the president loved the idea of calling their bluff with their own recommended candidate. He knew Garland’s chances of slipping past the GOP blockade were slim, but he figured they were better than anyone else’s.
The activists weren’t so sure. They were liberals; Garland wasn’t. They wanted a nominee who could add diversity to the Court, or at least energize minorities in an election year; Garland was a mild-mannered 63-year-old white man. The legal left had backed Obama’s judges in the past, even though they tended to be low-profile centrists in the Garland mold, but the attendees had hoped that in the twilight of his presidency, the former law professor might go a bit edgier. “There was definitely disappointment in the room,” recalls Mee Moua, an Asian-American advocate.
“If you can’t get excited about him,” Obama said, “then make this about me.”
Obama is a political pragmatist and a public advocate of judicial restraint, so he hasn’t nominated the dream judges of the left. But he certainly hasn’t appointed the kind of Federalist Society conservatives that George W. Bush favored, so liberal activists—who have indeed put aside their misgivings and supported Garland—have mostly approved of his impact on the justice system.
Now the Republicans were vowing to block anyone Obama picked, and the president loved the idea of calling their bluff with their own recommended candidate. He knew Garland’s chances of slipping past the GOP blockade were slim, but he figured they were better than anyone else’s.
“This is the right man at the right moment,” Obama said.
The activists weren’t so sure. They were liberals; Garland wasn’t. They wanted a nominee who could add diversity to the Court, or at least energize minorities in an election year; Garland was a mild-mannered 63-year-old white man. The legal left had backed Obama’s judges in the past, even though they tended to be low-profile centrists in the Garland mold, but the attendees had hoped that in the twilight of his presidency, the former law professor might go a bit edgier. “There was definitely disappointment in the room,” recalls Mee Moua, an Asian-American advocate.
“If you can’t get excited about him,” Obama said, “then make this about me.”
Obama is a political pragmatist and a public advocate of judicial restraint, so he hasn’t nominated the dream judges of the left. But he certainly hasn’t appointed the kind of Federalist Society conservatives that George W. Bush favored, so liberal activists—who have indeed put aside their misgivings and supported Garland—have mostly approved of his impact on the justice system.
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий