JONATHAN ADLER: Again on the erroneous argument that the Senate has a ‘constitutional duty’ to consider a Supreme Court nominee. “When there was a Republican president, Senate Democrats were happy to note that there is no constitutional duty to consider judicial nominees. Speaking at the Center for American Progress in 2005, then-senator Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) defended the Senate’s prerogatives. . . . Byrd’s remarks were subsequently endorsed and placed into the Congressional Record by then-senator Joe Biden (D-Del.). At that point in time, Byrd and Biden were defending the proposition that a minority of senators should be able to prevent the confirmation of a judicial nominee. Speaking of the vice president, this week Biden gave a speech at Georgetown University in which he tried to deny that he ever suggested the Senate should refuse to consider a Supreme Court nomination once the ‘political season’ had begun in a presidential election year.”

These people live in the Eternal Now, in which all that matters is whatever is politically expedient at the moment. That’s one reason why they shouldn’t be trusted on courts.