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Judge Garland is an experienced, highly regarded judge—who happens to be a liberal. In other words, he looks a lot like Samuel Alito did when he was nominated by George W. Bush, except that Alito was a conservative rather than a liberal.
Then-Senator Obama not only opposed Alito's nomination but supported a filibuster that would have denied the nominee a vote on the merits, on purely ideological grounds. It's hardly surprising that GOP senators, now in the majority, would approach this nomination similarly."
James R. Copland is a Senior Fellow and Director of Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute