I do think that searching for principal on Capitol Hill in the judicial confirmation debates is awfully hard.

It's like Diogenes searching for an honest man.

I shouldn't have to come to the school and pick up my son, you know, every other day because he's melting down,

or my child should not be escaping unnoticed from

school.

Hi and welcome to Amicus Slate's podcast about the Supreme Court.

I'm Dahlia Lithwick and I cover the courts for Slate.

293. That in the end was the grand total of days that Judge Merrick Garland waited before his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court officially expired this week with the swearing in of the new Congress.

And so it went that Mitch McConnell's

steadfast refusal to hold a hearing for Garland really paid off. Some Republican senators declined

to even give the nominee a courtesy meeting. And so, as Judge Garland returns to his seat on the

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, speculation turns to whether or not

Senate Democrats are going to consider turnabout to be fair play. In an appearance on MSNBC this

week, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested to Rachel Maddow that they very well might.

We are not going to make it easy for them to pick a Supreme Court justice.

Is there an argument to me made, though, if it is a fair statement that that was basically

a stolen seat, so it isn't theirs to fill, then in that case, no nominee would be

legitimate because that seat should have been filled by President Obama. It's hard for me

to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we could support.

So you're right.

And so you would do your best to hold the seat open?

Absolutely.

...