[perfmode]

That office is so important that I’m happy to wait until the right candidate shows up. And I don’t want republicans or Democrats.

I want scientists of law with integrity.

And there are plenty competent people with integrity. It is people who lack integrity that marginalize them.

[lifeformed]

Well there was one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland

A bipartisan moderate that everyone loved, recommended by both parties, poised to take the nomination, then blocked for years by the Republican party just as a total partisan f-you to Obama.

[zeveb]

> blocked for years

He was nominated on the 16th of March 2016; the election was on the eighth of November of the same year, and his nomination expired on the third of January 2017, less than a year later. No matter how you slice that, his nomination to the Supreme Court wasn't 'blocked for years.'

[lifeformed]

Whoops, you're right. I got that bit wrong.

[AcerbicZero]

Garland would have made an excellent choice instead of Kagan, or even Sotomayor, if there was a desire for a more balanced, more centrist SCOTUS. However after those two nominations replacing Scalia with Garland was obviously a bridge too far which the R's could not accept. As unpopular as it may have been, In a way, I don't really blame them, and it seems to have paid off for them in the long run.

[jerf]

"And there are plenty competent people with integrity."

But there are also plenty of people who lack integrity and, if it is permitted and gets them what they want, will fling arbitrarily nasty false accusations at people. There is no one with so much integrity that false accusations can't be made of them. You're pushing a rope.

[perfmode]

The Obama family has not had a single scandal.

[brodouevencode]

Shouldn't that office should be held to the same standards as the other three branches?

[int_19h]

No, because the other branches have failsafes, such as periodic elections. But with SCOTUS, if you make a mistake and confirm the wrong candidate for the job, the only remedy is impeachment, which is very hard to pull off (by design). Thus, the standards have to be extremely high.

[brodouevencode]

That was actually my point. The lifetime appointments are given because they want the appointees to act as freely as possible without consequence. This is a result of elections having consequences.

[commandlinefan]

> I’m happy to wait until the right candidate shows up

Well, you're in luck, because he was confirmed.