DASTARDLY DON PLODS ON!

By Edwin Cooney

If you're happy (even though I'm not) with President Donald and the GOP Senate's plot, you may well triumph in your justification, but beware of the wrath of an angry nation!

It might as well be cheerfully acknowledged, President Trump has the legal right to nominate a Conservative judge even with the approval of an unprincipled Republican Senate. After all, our Constitution empowers the President to propose and the Senate the right to dispose the nominations of cabinet officers, treaties, and justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. It also empowers both bodies of Congress to establish their own rules governing the creation, passage and rejection of legislation that appoints men and women to high public office. What it doesn't do is require the Senate majority to vote on the president's choices for office. Thus, back in 2016, the Senate could legally ignore President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland on the grounds that it was sufficiently late in the president's second and final term, that it was only right that the next president should have the right to choose the successor to Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia who had died in February 2016 while on a hunting vacation.

Now, especially in view of the possibility that the next president could be Democrat Joseph R. Biden, the 2016 GOP Senate principles are being abandoned by that Republican herd of pachyderms as swiftly and deadly as the herds of buffalos that once roamed the prairies of the Old West. "So," you may say, “what of it?"

During an election year where motives often rate above either principles or explanations, President Trump has just stirred the political pot full of young women throughout the country who believe firmly that they, and not the government, are the mistresses of their own bodies, social and spiritual fates. As the campaign rumbles on toward the first of three upcoming debates between Messrs. Biden and Trump, the president, so far, appears to believe that his base which left him nearly 3 million votes behind Hillary Clinton four years ago will carry him back into the White House.

What both Conservatives and President Trump don't seem to realize are two vital facts. First, the defeat of Roe v. Wade in a Conservative Supreme Court will not put this nation on a "moral path to salvation” since it will only limit the abortion rights to the poor. The well-off will meet their private needs without public notice or punishment. That would constitute no “moral story” that I've ever read or heard about. Second, once you solve the Roe v. Wade issue, the GOP will be that much politically weaker. 

There's a wonderful old story once told by Tommy (The Cork) Corcoran, one of FDR's aides. Tommy Corcoran was a young lawyer who originally worked for President Herbert Hoover in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He was originally embittered by President-elect Roosevelt's coolness toward President Hoover and the RFC. Fortunately for both Tommy and FDR, the Cork, at Hoover's direction, was assigned to stay on and work with the new administration to solidify the RFC and, within just a few weeks, Tommy found himself completely overwhelmed by the new President's humor and charm. So "The Cork" stuck with FDR. One day around 1935, the president sent the Cork to Capital Hill to lobby a Senate committee on a political matter. A few hours later, Tommy came back to say: Boss, I got it. The committee will support you on this thing. FDR grinned and took a long drag through his ivory cigarette holder and said: “Oh, Tommy, of course! You did a grand job to get me the votes I sent you up there for, but after thinking the matter over, I sent some other fellows right up there after you and they undid your work. After all, Tommy, next year is an election year and I'd rather have the issue than the solution!"

Politics being what it is, I told two Pennsylvania friends of mine that I thought that the president would select Judge Barbara Lagoa from Florida, an Hispanic jurist, believing that by doing so, he would be well on the way to winning the Sunshine State's 24 electoral votes. (Note: I'll let them be right while I remain provocative!)

The unhappy fact for "Trumpites" is that while Dastardly Donnie can be both decisive and even totally legal and he may not be impeachable these days, he is definitely both deflatable and defeat-able!

President Trump, unlike four years ago, possesses more foibles than his opponent.

Beware Mr. President, "Sleepy Joe" has been hibernating and he's as hungry as the proverbial bear when he awakens!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY