I was not a Biden fan during primary season, and I continue to believe that several of the other candidates would make better presidents than him, inasmuch as I think they are more aware of what this country needs to recover from not just four years of fascism, but years and years of Republican misrule, a misrule hardly interrupted by the Obama years.
Still, credit where credit is due. I think he’s run a smart campaign, and it seems fairly apparent that not only has he sought advice from the right people but he has taken that advice. Case in point, the “court packing issue”.
Some have accused Biden of punting on this issue, but if you want to call it that, then punting was what the issue required.
The media and punditocracy was hot to go after Biden on this issue, as a way of both siding the court issue. After all, if the Republicans have packed the court for years and years without a whisper of objection from the pundits, isn’t it reprehensible if the Democrats do the same? Shades of Franklin Roosevelt! Had Biden come out for court packing in its raw form we would not hear the end of it from now until the election, and there would be no recognition whatsoever that it is fully justified given recent history, not to mention the harm that a right wing court will do to the country if it continues to exist as a republic, something this court may be at pains to assure does not happen.
The pundits, just to be clear, are desperate to both sides the candidates; to come up with a whatabout that they can throw around about Biden to balance the multiple atrocities committed by the genius. They started beating on the court packing drum before Biden made his announcement, but so far as I can see, they’ve shut up since.
Biden is saying he would appoint a bipartisan commission to see what should be done about the courts, particularly the Supreme Court. I would agree with anyone who claimed that it’s a terrible idea because anything such a commission proposed by way of reforming the courts or the appointment process would promptly be declared unconstitutional by the very courts it was trying to reform. Sadly, for the most part, the courts would be right. The court system is set up in the constitution, and there’s not much you can do about it. There’s an argument to be made that you could legislatively set terms for Supreme Court judges, but they would certainly be struck down as applied to the sitting justices, and likely to all justices. There’s a crying need to change the constitution to deal with this very undemocratic and increasingly partisan institution, but that will not happen in the lifetime of anyone currently living.
I don’t know whether Biden is serious about this, or he’s just using it as a way to deflect on the issue. Either way, the pundits will all be mollified by what is patently bullshit and we won’t be hearing any more about scary (when the Democrats do it) court packing. Serious or not, he’s deprived the pundits of a drum to beat on. Right now the election is the most important thing, and Biden’s court proposal- it’s bi-partisan! after all-, is just the thing to keep the punditocracy silent.
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