You’ve really got to hand it to CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin. In what could be a stroke of genius, he has penned an op-ed in which he makes a valiant attempt to make it appear as if President Joe Biden is doing something right. But in so doing, he has further exposed just how utterly incompetent this administration has shown itself to be.
Toobin starts by acknowledging Biden is struggling “through the roughest patch of his presidency yet,” due to his abysmal approval numbers and the failure of getting his Build Back Better agenda through Congress. But the author pinpoints a silver lining: The fact that his judicial nominees are getting confirmed.
“The Senate has confirmed a record number of his nominees to the federal judiciary — the most of any president at this stage in 40 years — and at a time when that achievement matters more than ever,” he wrote.
He continued:
In its final days in session for the year, the Senate confirmed 10 district judges, giving Biden a total of 40 confirmations, a tie with Ronald Reagan’s record. By comparison, the Senate confirmed 18 circuit and district court judges in President Donald Trump’s first year in office, and 12 in President Barack Obama’s first year. Biden’s achievement is especially important at a time when partisanship in the judiciary is nearly as pervasive as it is in the political branches.
Toobin continued noting how judicial appointments proceeded under former President Donald Trump:
In overall numbers, according to Pew Research Center, Trump’s total of 226 in his single term is below the totals of recent two-term presidents, including Obama (320), George W. Bush (322) and Bill Clinton (367). But according to a Washington Post analysis, Trump appointed the youngest group of judges since at least the start of the 20th century. The average age of his appellate court judges was 47, about five years younger than Obama’s appellate judges. Since all federal judges enjoy life tenure, Trump created a legacy that would be difficult to reverse.
The author continues, whining about how Trump managed to appoint three new Supreme Court justices which somehow means that it “is not the most partisan of federal courts, one with a clear conservative majority on such issues as abortion, affirmative action, gun safety and many others.”
However, he seems hopeful that Biden’s appointees will make the judiciary less partisan or something and worries that “[i]f the Democrats lose even a single Senate seat in the 2022 midterms (as historical trends suggest they will), [Mitch] McConnell will again be majority leader and in a position to bring judicial confirmations to a halt.”
The author then opines that Sen. Schumer and the rest of the gang should continue pushing through Biden’s nominees as quickly as possible before mean ol’ Mitch McConnell regains power and stymies the rest of the president’s appointees.
What Toobin describes might sound like a victory – but there’s one simple problem: Nobody cares.
That’s right. While it might be a small benefit for Democrats, Biden getting his nominees confirmed does nothing to make up for the mess his administration has made of things. Moreover, there is absolutely no way it will help him and the rest of the Democrats appeal to the majority of voters who pay little attention to which judges are being appointed.
No amount of left-leaning judges will make up for the impact of inflation, which is increasingly taking its toll on everyday Americans. Earlier this month, it was revealed that inflation increased to 6.8 percent, the highest in almost 40 years. This isn’t sitting well with the electorate — no matter how much the White House lies about it. Even after colluding with the activist media to obtain more favorable coverage, Biden’s approval rating remains in the toilet.
The supply chain crisis is also an issue that will continue to haunt this administration until it abates – and there is no telling when that will happen. The fact that Biden can’t articulate a coherent solution to the problem is yet another issue that will not exactly endear him to voters next year.
The list of Biden’s foibles is so long that if I were to write them all here, you might need a few more cups of coffee (possibly spiked with Irish cream) to read through it all. The migrant crisis, botched Afghanistan withdrawal, and obvious cognitive issues are all factors in this equation.
No matter what Toobin says, things are not looking good for the president and Democrats. There are no amount of judicial appointments that will put them in a better position. It would probably be better for folks like him to consider where they went wrong in the first place instead of putting lipstick on the proverbial pig.
