McConnell Compares Sotomayor Confirmation To Closure Of Guantanamo Prison
McConnell Compares Sotomayor Confirmation To Closure Of Guantanamo Prison
Complaining about the Senate’s plans to consider the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor before the August recess, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told Fox News that obstructing Sotomayor’s confirmation is necessary to prevent a situation like Guantanamo Bay:
“We don’t want to have a situation like they did with Guantanamo where they didn’t even have a game plan,” McConnell, R-Ky., said, referring to the Obama’s administration’s lack of details on closing the detention facility, which compelled senators last month to strip $80 million of funding for the plan from a war spending bill.
“It’s an arbitrary date and it strikes me as a ticket to disaster,” he said.
It’s unclear how the timely confirmation of a Supreme Court Justice resembles the task of closing down an unconstitutional internment camp.
McConnell must not have been paying very close attention during the last eight years. The Guantanamo prison is a quagmire not because of President Obama’s lack of planning, but because of President Bush’s incompetent management of the facility. Because “most physical evidence” documenting why individual detainees were brought to Gitmo “either disappeared or had been stored in locations that no one with any tenure at, or institutional knowledge of, the Commissions could identify with any degree of specificity or certainty,” the Bush Administration made it nearly-impossible to perform the constitutionally required task of determining which detainees must be released.
The truth is this: Judge Sotomayor’s hearings will begin 48 days after her nomination was announced. Chief Justice Roberts, whose record was more difficult to investigate because it was necessary to track down thousands of pages of documents Roberts produced while he worked in the Reagan and Bush I Administrations, received a hearing after only 51 days. The Chief Justice was confirmed 72 days after his nomination, even though Senators were distracted from reviewing Roberts’ record after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. The 72nd day after Sotomayor’s nomination will be August 6, the day before the August recess is supposed to begin. By confirming Sotomayor according to the Senate’s intended schedule, President Obama’s nominee will receive exactly the same treatment afforded to President Bush’s nominee.
In the end, Senator McConnell’s disingenuous attempts to obstruct Judge Sotomayor have nothing to do with allowing sufficient time to investigate her record. He’s just hoping to buy more time to drag Sotomayor through the mud.
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Wow — judging from the picture, it looks like McConnell must be at the right hand of Jeebus hisself these days…he must be so dang proud of hisself…
June 10th, 2009 at 3:55 pm“It’s an arbitrary date and it strikes me as a ticket to disaster,” he said.
– - So is whatever date any GOP’er announces their run for president.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:57 pmPoutrage (as coined by Rachel last night).
June 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pmHuh-huh-huh,
I’m Mitch McConnell, a Good Ole Boy if ever there was one, 67 years old and completely out of touch with most Americans, but I’m a Bible Belt Baptist and gosh darn it, I’m going to make you all conform to my beliefs whether you like it or not. I decide whether or not you are a racist. I decide who you can marry. Just don’t tell anyone that I left my first wife ‘cuz she was TOO LIBRUL (she works at SMITH COLLEGE!).
Mitch McConnell
June 10th, 2009 at 3:59 pmIf McConnell’s wife were nominated, he’d expect confirmation in 10 days.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:01 pmMitch is just another right-wing terrorist.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:02 pmOT – sorry – gotta run, and wanted to post this GOOD NEWS before i took off:
Carrie Prejean stripped of the Miss California crown
Jun 10, 2009, 03:27 PM | by Dave Karger
[...]
Runner-up Tami Farrell will now take the place of Prejean, who recently substituted as anchor of Fox News Channel’s morning show Fox & Friends.
fox… whodduthunkit…
June 10th, 2009 at 4:03 pmThis just more excuses for stalling the appointment. A judicial nomination does not require a game plan. The Senate does a background check, looks at past opinions and statements. The Senators can submit in advance written questions to the nominee. Then there is a hearing and a vote.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:04 pmMegaloptera McWars Says:
If McConnell’s wife were nominated, he’d expect confirmation in 10 days
Don’t you mean his beard?
June 10th, 2009 at 4:04 pmWhat’s the matter, Mitchy, can’t review her record and brawl with Bunning at the same time?
June 10th, 2009 at 4:05 pmoops
June 10th, 2009 at 4:05 pmhttp://news-briefs.ew.com/2009/06/miss-california-carrie-prejean-fired.html
These republicans are really extreme.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:07 pmMadow talked about the time between nomination and confirmation of the existing Supreme Court Justices and Sotomayer’s falls just above avg.
Side note. Anytime McConnel is on TV I don’t here a thing he says. I’m transfixed on that ever wiggling turkey neck of his.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:09 pmI still remember Bush promising to close Gitmo. I think he was going to get to it right after he demolished Abu Gahraib.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:10 pmMcConnell again proves himself to be an ignorant crackpot making ludicrous comments. You’d think by now the Repubs would have figured out just how ridiculous & bigoted they sound. All their lack of understanding, racism, hate, & whining has certainly come to the fore since Obama was elected. We see your true colors shining through….
June 10th, 2009 at 4:11 pmCarrie Prejean stripped of the Miss California crown
Fox has their feature story of the day, or alternate reality ™.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:11 pmI think the game plan is pretty simple. Install her on the SCOTUS. There aren’t any complications there. She walks over the SCOTUS building and starts moving in. Plan solved.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:12 pmMcConnell looks like he’s wearing a propeller beanie.
How appropriate!
June 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pmAs I posted before, are the Republicans stupid enough to keep smearing Judge Sotomayor, and then expect her to be completely unbiased once she is on the bench?
I can see bringing up legitimate issues about her record, wanting to make sure there is enough time to examine her record to insure that she has the qualifications and temperament to be a Supreme Court Justice. I think it is the job of the Senate to ask hard questions of a person who will be in that position for the rest of their life.
But the smear campaign is just really getting out of control. If a case comes before her that has anything to do with some of these Republicans, how could she possibly NOT be influenced by that experience? And I wouldn’t blame her if it did.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pmPoint of fact, the Republican party is entirely at fault for any difficulties in legally processing Guantanamo detainees. Having gathered no evidence against the people they were collecting on bounty, then torturing them and trying to block them even getting to a legal court, they hardly get to complain about the lack of a “plan.”
June 10th, 2009 at 4:22 pmGee, Senator, do you think the rain will hurt the rhubarb?
June 10th, 2009 at 4:24 pmThat’s rich. Hearing this war supporter talking about Obama having “no game plan”.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:26 pmthe majority makes the schedule. get use to it and find other ways to obstruct within the schedule. that’s about all the gop is good for these days anyway, obstruction.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:31 pmMy goodness! McConnell needs to STFU! His comments are a ticket to the disaster of the GOP.
And thanks to the Bush Crime Family and the Rethuglican party, Guatanamo has become a disaster for all of America.
The Obama Administration needs to move forward with the nomination of Sotomayor.
Good pic TP! HAHA!
June 10th, 2009 at 4:37 pmSo this is the tale of our GnOpees
June 10th, 2009 at 4:44 pmthey been here for a long, long time.
They always make the worst of things,
it’s an uphill climb.
Lefty Liberal Says:
As I posted before, are the Republicans stupid enough to keep smearing Judge Sotomayor, and then expect her to be completely unbiased once she is on the bench?
June 10th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I expect Judge Sotomayor to be as unbiased as any human can be while on the bench. A good judge does not take these types of attacks into consideration when making decisions — it’s not about them, it’s about the case at hand and the law.
On the other hand, the Latino voting block is not blind or deaf — actions have consequences. The Republicans have probably lost those votes.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:44 pmSeriously, they’re wasting whatever shreds of political capital they have left on this. They can’t stop Sotomayor and the fact is they don’t really have any reason to want to. The only result of going obstructionist on the Sotomayor nomination is making them look stupid as they perform ridiculous backflips to try to construct one transparently fake reason after another to oppose it.
Learn to pick your battles, R’s. Otherwise by the time something you can legitimately oppose comes along, everybody will be already too sick of your crap to listen.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:46 pmCaption contest: Earthlings, take me to your non-citizen leader — and not that igmoe Newt again.
June 10th, 2009 at 4:47 pmCaption Contest: If you do not do as I wish, this UFO behind me will destroy the the White House!
June 10th, 2009 at 4:48 pmZooey:
Yes, I agree that she will try to be unbiased as most judges at all levels try to be. But human nature being what it is, there is no way that the venom that is being spewed won’t have an effect on her, and to the detriment of those that are the most vocal.
I said the same about Justices Alito and Roberts during their confirmation hearings. The difference in this case is one of race, and the Republicans are just underscoring the need for race to be a factor in deciding cases. Again, to their detriment.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:16 pmRemeber that the rethuglicans always sound outlandish because they are talking to the 21%ers. They are talking to a group of hateful wingnuts with a combined IQ of less than room temperature. That is why they sound so stupid to thinking people.
June 10th, 2009 at 5:18 pmDo R. politicians have an x painted on the floor so they can get the halo effect when they pontificate? Or does the photographer do it to make them look silly?
June 10th, 2009 at 5:21 pmJune 10th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
It looks more like the mothership is coming to pick him up…
June 10th, 2009 at 6:29 pmSince they only seem to be talking to their 18% lately, I guess this makes sense, in a Republican way; but they look like a bunch of hysterical ninnies.
Can you imagine working with people like this?
It’s natural for a three year old to bang around with the alarms sounding constantly, but then again, that’s when an adult should be working very hard to ensure that the child is not rewarded for terrible behavior, and teaching the child to regulate their emotions.
So glad the enfant terrible is no longer in the White House. The residuals are a sorry spectacle. I want a 100% adult Congress. We’ve got more pressing problems to deal with than their childishness—that should be a private matter between them and their social worker.
June 10th, 2009 at 6:44 pmUnder what set of false pretenses did McConnel get elected? How does his constituency put up with his incompetence?
June 10th, 2009 at 7:26 pmhivanh Says:
Under what set of false pretenses did McConnel get elected?
Kentucky.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:15 pmAren’t these idiots old enough to die yet? What’s the holdup?
June 11th, 2009 at 12:05 amOK. Someone is gonna have to explain the logic here for me. How is Sotomayor like Gitmo ?
June 11th, 2009 at 11:41 pmMapleStreet Says:
How is Sotomayor like Gitmo ?
There’s gotta be a good punchline to this…
June 12th, 2009 at 2:02 am