Lynn Sweet’s Sept. 8 Chicago Sun-Times column “Supreme Shaming” is amusing.
She describes how Senate Democrats, including Dick Durbin of Illinois and Harry Reid of Nevada, are blasting fellow Republican senators for not holding hearings on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
Never mind that Sen. Reid, when he was majority leader, and Sen. Durbin, when he was majority whip, blocked scores of legislation that had passed the House. They refused to even allow the Senate to vote on the legislation. Sweet attributes the failure to hold Senate hearings on the Garland nomination to politics in a presidential election year. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, if elected, will not renominate Garland. And Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, if elected, will do what?
The media need to ask Clinton: Do you support Obama’s nominee, Garland, to fill the Scalia vacancy? If you do not, why not? If you support Garland’s nomination and he is not confirmed before Obama leaves office and you are elected president, will you renominate Garland?
Dennis M. Dohm, Oak Lawn
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Trump’s praise for Putin sours Boomers
Back in the day I wrote my first fully cursive letter to President Eisenhower, urging him to stay strong in the face of Nikita Krushchev and the ever-present threat of Communism.
Since Mr. Trump is older than I, I’m assuming he, too, remembers those days of widespread fear of everything Russian — civil defense drills under school desks and backyard bomb shelters. It is therefore inconceivable to me how he thinks lauding the current Russian regime (Putin in particular) would have legs in the 2016 presidential election. There are still too many of us Boomer voters for whom Russia remains the “enemy.”
The thought of praising its president and denigrating ours somehow seems traitorous to me, and I suspect I’m not alone.
Kay Catlin, St. Charles
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