President Barack Obama's choice for the Supreme Court is possibly the "most conservative nominee" picked by a Democratic president in modern years, and it's obvious he was chosen to "pry loose Republicans," Judge Andrew Napolitano said Wednesday.
"He is not Justice Elena Kagan," Napolitano told Fox News' Bill Hemmer on the
"America's Newsroom" program about Obama's SCOTUS choice, U.S. Court of Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland.
"He is not Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He does not think about the law the way Barack Obama does, so Barack Obama does not get the opportunity to appoint Antonin Scalia's opposite number."
Napolitano said he knows Garland professionally, and described him as a "consummate Washington, D.C. insider" who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats.
"He was a prosecutor in the [President] George H.W. Bush office and nominated to court by President Bill Clinton," said Napolitano.
"It is dangerous to appoint someone who the Supreme Court that has a 19-year track record because people will find something to address and I suggest this is not a win for the president . . .
"If he does not get on the court, then we're still at a stalemate. So in my view this is a lose-lose for the president."
And, Napolitano predicted, Obama will use the nomination to "pry loose Republican senators in tough reelection battles who don't want to defend standing firm as part of their reelection campaigns, and he may succeed there.
"But the decision whether or not to hear this nomination, whether to give it an up-or-down vote is not made by the 54 Republicans in the Senate, it is made by one of them, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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