Thoughts?
Just a conspiracy theory - he may have made a deal with Trump where he would offer mild criticism of Trump to show his ‘independence’ with the hope that he could pull off a few Democrat votes. Remember Trump had lunch today with a handful of Dem senators from states that went solidly for Trump. Those senators need something to justify straying from the party line if they are going to vote for him. I wouldn’t put too much stock on this one comment. Knowing Trump and his one great talent at picking the right people, I can’t for a moment think Trump didn’t know what he was getting.
No freaking way. Gorsuch was an inspired choice by President Trump, a 49-year-old originalist judge praised for his intelligence and writing ability. He’s exactly the type of nominee that will sail through confirmation (and create Democrat civil wars in the process), convince Justice Kennedy that the water’s fine to retire now because Trump won’t nominate a Judge Roy Moore-type to replace him (personally, I would love to see a younger version of Moore in SCOTUS, but it is neither necessary to our long-term goals nor conducive to our strategy to convince Kennedy to retire so that we finally can have a conservative majority to overturn Roe, Obergefell, etc.), and, if Democrat Senators overplay their hand and filibuster despite objections from those who are up in 2018, convince RINOs like Collins and Murkowski to vote for the nuclear option (those two would be unlikely to go along if the nominee were not someone to their liking). And Gorsuch is exactly the type of originalist and strict-constructionist that can make logical arguments in his opinions so that we finally get back the rule of law and respect for the Constitution.
As for Gorsuch’s comments, they’re exactly what he needed to say. Notice that he didn’t say that President Trump’s legal arguments are incorrect, only that it is demoralizing for members of the Judicial Branch when any politician claims that they “aren’t real judges” just because they rule against them. And people forget that he is going through a confirmation process, and was meeting with a Democrat Senator *as requested by Trump’s team* when he made the statement in response to a question by said Senator. Gorsuch answered in the best way possible to meet President Trump’s goal of achieving a quick confirmation by the Senate.
Besides, the confirmation hearings for President Trump’s Cabinet have shown that President Trump didn’t want a bunch of yes-men in his Cabinet, and the President exoressed support for his nominees even when they publicly asserted their disagreement with many of the President’s preferred policies. And those were disagreements of policy, which are far more important than disagreements of Tweeting style.
We are at the cusp of obtaining confirmation for a 49-year-old originalist Justice that could lead to Justice Kennedy’s replacement with another originalist within the next three years. Don’t let’s mess this up by raising a sh1t-storm over a judge expressing disagreement with a statement that referred to a fellow federal judge as a “so-called judge.”