The Senate should have considered garland. And then voted to deny him the appointment. But since senators, especially the republican ones, are cowards, the path they took achieved the same result and didn’t involve the risk that garland might be confirmed. Senators should consider each supreme court nominees on their merits and their faithfulness to the Constitution. If they did then we wouldn’t have breyer, ginsburg, sotomayor or kagan on the ussc.
The Kentucky Turtle handled it just right...he kept Garland off the Court and minimized any political damage to his colleagues by not having public hearings. That the seat was still unfilled as of the election gave conservatives an incentive to go to the polls to make sure that Trump rather than Hillary got to fill the vacancy.