The tortured logic from right-wing media about replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Back in 2016 and early 2017, Fox News was the self-satisfied home to a great deal of principled thinking about the importance of the American people’s will.

Here, for example, was Laura Ingraham, voicing her approval of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s machinations to bypass Obama nominee Merrick Garland and get conservative justice Neil M. Gorsuch onto the Supreme Court bench after Trump’s election:

“The last 70 years, a Supreme Court justice was not confirmed in the final year of a president’s term,” preached the future Fox host, then a frequent guest on “Hannity.” She fretted that it “doesn’t matter” to left-leaning partisans. This was lofty-sounding but wrong: To pick just one of many examples to the contrary, the Democratic-controlled Senate unanimously confirmed President Ronald Reagan’s nomination of Anthony M. Kennedy in early 1988, an election year. Continue reading.