Even as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the constitutionality of racial preferences via Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and a companion action against UNC, President Joe Biden has restated a campaign promise: If elected, he would nominate a black woman to the nation’s highest tribunal. More concretely, to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer — whites, Hispanics, Americans of Asian descent, and men need not apply.
This is straight-out race- and sex discrimination.
It is hilarious to hear Biden discuss his commitment to black-female advancement, given that he used the so-called “Jim Crow filibuster” to oppose President G.W. Bush’s nomination of conservative Janice Rogers Brown to the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the de facto on-deck circle for the Supreme Court. Brown’s Red-state philosophy trumped her black skin. So, Biden threw down his yellow flag.
Overlooking the immorality of Biden’s pledge, keeping this commitment could cure multiple headaches for him, if he did it right. While America’s skull would throb for decades, Biden would be comforted in the short term by nominating Vice President Kamala Harris to the high court.
Biden has broken more promises than plates at a Greek wedding. Unify America? Cool the national temperature? No vaccine mandates? Smash! Crash! Crunch!
Biden could keep a promise, for once, and actually name a black woman to SCOTUS. This would give Biden and the White House something to discuss beyond the disappointment du jour.
Biden’s Left-wing base would be thrilled. The neo-Marxist natives have been restless, what with the failure of Biden’s $4.7 trillion Build Back Better boondoggle, his calamitous assault on the Senate filibuster, and the collapse of H.R. 5746, the Democrats’ Vote Fraud Instruction Manual of 2022.
While most Americans would recoil in horror, Biden’s Leftist pals and his black-female base would salivate at the notion of Associate Justice Harris, 57, spending perhaps the next 25 years advancing wretched, socialist jurisprudence. This would be dreadful for America, but would advance the Left’s destructive worldview. This is exactly why Biden might find this notion so appetizing.
With Kamala Harris no longer a vena cava swoosh away from the Oval Office, Biden could nominate a non-bird-brain to the vice-presidency. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D – Minnesota) comes to mind. She is about 10 country miles further Left than her “moderate,” PTA-mom demeanor would suggest. In fact, Klobuchar’s lifetime American Conservative Union rating is a neo-Bolshevik 4.8 percent.
That said, Klobuchar seems unlikely to be an actual national embarrassment. She can conduct TV interviews without lapsing into Girl Scout-like giggles. Klobuchar is about the best that one could expect from a modern Democrat: She would be Leftist in belief but non-humiliating in execution. If Klobuchar could meet that low standard and maintain some level of basic poise, she might help stabilize Biden’s cratering poll numbers.
None of this would make Deroy Murdock happy. But if I were Joe Biden, this is exactly what I would do. This move would solve multiple problems for Biden with one smooth swoop.
Now, if the Senate decision on Supreme Court nominee Kamala Harris came down to a 50 Democrat/50 Republican tie, imagine Harris as vice-president breaking that deadlock to place herself on the Court by one vote: Hers.
Finally, how much time would pass between Harris departing the vice presidency and her replacement filling that post? During that interval, any Senate vote that reached a 50-50 tie would fail. So long as the VP seat stayed empty, and Republicans remained unified, Democrats could accomplish nothing. This would give the GOP a strong incentive to push the VP substitution vote until…tomorrow.
That said, Republicans would be wise to be careful with their wishes. If the vice presidency were empty, and President Biden could not execute his office, a late-night phone call suddenly could trigger the swearing in of…President Nancy Pelosi.
Whatever happens, here comes yet another riveting chapter in American public life, just in a nick of time.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor, a contributing editor with National Review Online, and a senior fellow with the London Center for Policy Research.
