“These are the Biden rules. The Biden Rules recognize that under these circumstances, quote, ‘The president should consider following the practice of a majority of his predecessors and not name a nominee until after the November election is completed'."
If Joe Biden weren't the sitting vice president this wouldn't be quite as troublesome for President Obama. But Biden just sat down with Rachel Maddow this past week, and flatly dismissed the Republican argument for delaying the nomination until after the next president is inaugurated. And I can't help but wonder if Biden had been sweating bullets these past days wondering if this speech was going to surface. His prediction about the 1992 election was a bit hyperbolic, and it would fall short of his dire warnings, but what he said could certainly be applied to the 2016 presidential election.
“I sadly predict, Mr. President that this is going to be one of the bitterest, dirtiest presidential campaigns we will have seen in modern times,” he said. “I’m sure Mr. President, after having uttered these words some, some will criticize such a decisions and say it was nothing more than an attempt to save a seat on the court in hopes that a Democrat will be permitted to fill it.”
Say it ain't so, Joe. On June 25, 1992 then-Senator Joe Biden delivered an impassioned speech on the Senate floor during which he made almost exactly the same arguments we have hearing from Republicans on the question of replacing a Supreme Court justice in a presidential election year. In 1992, Biden was the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was addressing a hypothetical situation. There was no vacancy on the Supreme Court, at the time he made the speech, and Biden is now arguing that his views are being misinterpreted. Still, this will provide plenty of ammunition for Republicans, and the current Judiciary Committee chairman Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa immediately pounced on the opportunity to turn the tables:
