Merrick Garland Is Too Weak to Be Attorney General: Over and over again, the Biden appointee has proven to be painfully naïve in the face of Republican bad faith.
by thenewrepublic
Merrick Garland Is Too Weak to Be Attorney General: Over and over again, the Biden appointee has proven to be painfully naïve in the face of Republican bad faith.
by thenewrepublic
48 comments
Merrick Garland’s rigid adherence to “norms” has instead aided Republican bad faith attacks.
I wonder if it’s naïveté, or simply an unwillingness to properly confront their perfidy, since that would create a godawful mess.
Sadly, people are inclined to ignore godawful messes for the sake of expediency until they grow into outright disasters.
He’s not naive; he’s a conservative. Just like them. Why would he rock his buddies’ boat?
I’m stunned they didn’t nominate Doug Jones to be AG originally. Former senator and prosecutor, was from a red state.
Imagine how shitty a Supreme Court justice he’d be. Obviously, not as bad as what we’ve got, but he was a Republican compromise pick for very good reason.
If Biden wins re-election his first order of business should be replacing Garland
Garland is slow, weak, and has made many mistakes. He needs a replacement imo
He more than anyone else has been corrosive to the struggle to maintain democracy. I’m sure he’s a decent man of integrity, but he so clearly doesn’t gave an understanding of what circles America and the threat and tactics of Trump. If the Jan. 6th trial doesn’t take place before the election and Trump gets elected to his is his fault and shame. Idiotic to sit around for more than a year until a special counsel is appointed. If he had any balls he would have had DoJ do the Biden documents probe. How stupid can he bd to unleash a Trump flunkie to be a special counsel and then not discipline the report not to
Include unqualified medical opinions about competency. Fucking moron.
More like “sluggishly stupid and weak.” but ok.
I gave him every benefit of the doubt. Until that special counsel report came out. Garland needs to go.
I believe one of the first things Joe Biden will do if reelected will be to replace Merrick Garland
It was a stupid appointment, the guy was a milquetoast from the get go.
Garland is a moderate republican who broke with departmental policy by releasing the entire work product instead of a summary report as was done with Pence. It also violates the requirements of the special investigator manual.
James Comey is also a moderate republican who broke with departmental policy by speaking in public announcing Hillary Clinton did not violate the law and was also cleared but spoke at length about unsupported suspicions solely based on his opinion.
Basically two moderate republicans abused their authority to smear democrats both actively campaigning for the presidency. This is still another example of violating norms and policy at the highest levels becoming normalized and that’s unacceptable.
I think he’s less painfully naïve and more willfully complicit
This is bidens fault we knew who this dude was bef9re and biden picked him anyway
Sad but true. Dems have fallen for the Republican lie that “fairness” means giving everyone an equal seat at the table, which led to the MAGAhat who when he could find NOTHING criminal in President Biden’s actions added vile indefensible bullshit about President Biden to distract from Trump’s criminality and ignorance.
What Trumpites want is an absurd privileged position for their nonsense that is the equalivent of demanding support for Israel be “balanced” by equal support for Nazis.
Maybe because he’s a Republican.
He’d make a great ambassador to a country nobody has heard of.
In the Biden/Harris 2nd Term, with a healthy Democratic House Majority and a GOP Obstruction proof Democratic Senate Majority…
…They can gon’ head and appoint NYAG Tish James as AG for the US. Thanks for your service AG Garland. Tish will take it from here.
lol.
Where were these articles two fucking years ago?? Instead all we heard was Garland is “dotting his i’s and crossing his t’s” and that “tHe WhEeL oF juSTicE tuRns SlOwlY”. Now Trump has a real chance at a 2nd term because of this weak and cowardly man. I hope everyone who made excuses for him understands the damage and danger this man has caused for our democracy.
Seems like we dodged a bullet with this guy’s Supreme Court nomination…
Perhaps controversial but I’m curious about all the surprise.
Remember, yes yes we all were horrified at McConnell using nonsense excuses to justify bending rules, however also remember he was nominated by Obama after being labelled a “very good pick” by the GOP. He’s not a firebrand or progressive, he’s a by the books centrist who over his career maintains the idea that the Rules are the Rules and everyone is playing the same game. And FYI he’s not actually doing anything intentionally negative, he’s just very VERY frustratingly slowly and methodically following the rules and guidelines, and therefore playing straight into the hands of the move fast break things strategy.
Has he really been naive, or are his actions deliberate?
This is ironic as fuck, naively asking if Garland is too weak to be AG. My head is about to explode.
I think he should be replaced with Preet Bahara former attorney general from NY, he was removed by the orange shitstains administration.
I know that Biden purposely left a few Republicans in his inner circle, to appear bipartisan, and I think to just have an ear into that world. (Keep your friends close but your enemies closer kinda thing)
I hope when he wins re-election he abandons this plan though, as it has already proven to be more detrimental than beneficial.
He can’t reason with irrational people, how weak!
Little less than a year left. Get somebody in who can do the job.
He’s Federalist Society. It’s deliberate.
Fire him YESTERDAY.
We needed an AG who was a prosecutor. We didn’t need a judge. Garland is a very decent man but not the man we needed, not suited to the times. I was hoping for Deval Patrick. Instead, Garland was appointed as some kind of consolation prize. We should have had a fire-breather in the Bobby Kennedy-mode who would signal “I’m sick of this shit” from the get-go.
Obama nominating this guy for the Supreme Court was on the of biggest dem mistakes. He was a moderate no one on the left was excited about being on the court but he picked him to make the republicans happy and we know how that turned out. Then Biden admin thinks they’re doing an FU to the republicans by appointing a moderate that they don’t have a problem with.
I think it’s naïveté, combined with timidity, combined with apathy because of not being appointed to the supreme court.
A lot of us have said this from day one when Golly Gee Garland began his slow walking of all necessary investigations into Jan 6 traitors who were involved in the upper level organizing of the attempted coup. Aka congress folk like Marge Green, Gaetz, Bobort, and on and on including that geriatric putz traitor from Iowa Chucky Grassley. And now it’s been revealed (was the press even looking?) that Golly Gee was a water carrying maga apologist all along.
Time to use Doug Jones.
I think the problem is that Garland behaves like a judge not a prosecutor.
He is not a wartime consigliere.
If Biden gets a second term he needs to go.
Yeah, Garland has been too kind to the bad actors on the right. Even Biden dropped most of his even-handed bipartisanship when he wised up to the MAGA problem. Even now he specifically calls out ‘MAGA Republicans’ so he can try to work with the few remaining level-headed GOP members.
Garland slow walked the J6 stuff for reasons only he knows.
For Biden’s second term, I think Jack Smith would make a nice AG. Put the fear of Justice into the hearts of all evil-doers, regardless of political leaning.
I have desperately tried to see him as bending over backwards to avoid the appearance of partisanship but he has proven to be nothing more than wide-eyed and feckless. Could it be that he is indeed bending over, just not *backwards*?
I’m sick of Democrat presidents appointing middle of the road Republicans to high office with them. DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, hell even the Secret Service and their bullshit excuse of a routine phone wipe after J6. Stop extending olive branches to the Republican party until they get their MAGA issue in order, they have bigger fish to fry internally.
(R)s in those 3 letter agencies really drives me nuts, they didn’t do a fucking thing until the J6 committee got the ball rolling.
If Biden wins, he should get a new AG.
Imo Garland is in on it – neck deep and compromised- no one can be this big of a coward to not hold criminals accountable to save our democratic body – he is the leader of the DOJ and after a coup attempt broadcast on television, planned to a T, he hasn’t done shit outside of a few arrests of low level pawns and delaying everything- half of congress and jenni Thomas was even involved- RESIGN NOW
I’m not sure he is that stupid, it may actually be intentional.
Naive is a sad, heartbreaking understatement
Complicit, not naive. Come on. His longtime mentor is Kushners attorney. He is cozy with the Federalist society. There were some of us warning about this for years and we were constantly told to shove off with it. And here we are.
Move Kamala to AG and pick a new VP who people like.
Man, I remember when Reddit was all up in arms because this guy didn’t get appointed to the Supreme Court.
Not “naive;” owned by the Federalist Society.
He is a Republican, always has been.