If he did accept a Senate rebuke and compromise by nominating a more centrist judge, I’d almost be more worried because that would imply that he’s settling into the job. I prefer him violently clashing against everyone and everything around him and thereby derailing their agenda with further distractions and cluster fucks.
Based on the other options on the list drumpf circulated during the campaign, this guy seems like the best option out of the whole lousy bunch.
Ideologically, I detest him. Judicially, he’s a notch or two less inflammatory than Scalia, and I’m afraid that’s the small consolation to be had here. Hell, he could end up having a conscience and become this generation’s Souter (a long shot, but why not hope?). Any subsequent nominations for the position will only be increasingly more odious. The Democrats can grandstand (or ideally, grill the hell out of him), but as the minority party there’s not much to be had option-wise that would be any better. Repeated obstruction will not yield a more centrist nomination under any scenario that I can imagine.
So I came here to see if anyone remembered what a reprehensible piece of work his mother was. Apparently not. As a former EPA employee (though not under her watch) I do. Oh, and the son doesn’t have an original thought in his head, he’s just repeating things his mom told him while he was growing up.
In general she was the one who politicized the EPA, and tried to run it into the ground. The agency staff was largely demoralized at the end of her watch. Among other, more specific issues were her borderline criminal efforts to bypass regulations calling for a decrease in lead in gasoline, and her refusal to answer to Congress when they caught her misusing a billion $ in Superfund allocations they had given her. She resigned to avoid answering for her misdeeds, which at the time people couldn’t decide were a result of over-the-top incompetence, criminality, or twisted nastiness. In retrospect, with a modern understanding of how evil some of these new-style Republicans can be, it was likely some combination of the latter two.