By Dave Andrusko

Judge Neil Gorsuch and Pro-life President Donald Trump

There are multiple ways to determine just how successful pro-life President Donald Trump was when he nominated appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

For starters, his choice was hailed by pro-lifers.

Mr. Trump said last night, “When Justice Scalia passed away suddenly last February, I made a promise to the American people: If I were elected president, I would find the very best judge in the country for the Supreme Court. I promised to select someone who respects our laws and is representative of our Constitution and who loves our Constitution and someone who will interpret them as written. ..

“I am a man of my word.”

And he did nominate an outstanding jurist, a truth even many Democrats concede (which doesn’t stop Senate leadership from talking about filibustering Gorsuch’s nomination).

A second metric is the hysteria with which Judge Gorsuch was met; more about that in a second.

A third way of grasping how excellent the selection was can be seen in the headline over an op-ed written by one of the Washington Post’s many Trump-haters, columnist Chris Cillizza: “Donald Trump just had the first good day of his presidency.”

That is not true, of course, but the point is that even someone as bitter as Cillizza is conceded President Trump’s nominee is a winner.

After Cillizza first acknowledged that Mr. Trump had managed to keep his choice secret, no mean feat in gossipy Washington, DC., he wrote

When the official announcement came, it was exactly what every conservative who voted for Trump despite their doubts about him had dreamed of: a true conservative justice with the sort of pedigree (Harvard, Oxford) that will make it tough for Democrats to stand in unified opposition to the pick. …

Gorsuch then stepped to the mic and knocked it out of the park, delivering a humble thank you that any politician — no matter the party — couldn’t have been anything but impressed by.

Back to metric two–the gasket-blowing harangues from the likes of pro-abortion Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and the editorial page of the New York Times. Even on those rare occasions (off our topic) when I can agree with the Times editorial page, I am amazed how sloppily reasoned is their argument.

Many writers, including yours truly, have long since dispatched the tiresome argument that the Republican Senate had some sort of obligation to hold confirmation hearings for outgoing President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace Justice Scalia. It simply isn’t true, but it is now such a part of pro-abortion Democratic folklore that (as the headline to the Times’ editorial put it) Judge Gorsuch can only be described as “the Nominee for a Stolen Seat.”

That aside, the gist of the Times’ position is that “President Trump had a great opportunity to repair some of that damage by nominating a moderate candidate for the vacancy.” Exactly how?

By not replacing one “originalist” (Justice Scalia) with another originalist (Judge Gorsuch). Ah….why?

Because

Mr. Trump’s failure to choose a more moderate candidate is the latest example of his refusal to acknowledge his historic unpopularity and his nearly three-million-vote loss to Hillary Clinton. A wiser president faced with such circumstances would govern with humility and a respect for the views of all Americans.

Two points. First, there is no nominee a Republican President could possibly make that would please the New York Times. Like Schumer, the Times has this imaginary creation of its own making–the judicial “mainstream”–which is composed entirely of judges liked by pro-abortion Democrats.

For example, according to NBC News, here is how Schumer responded to Rachel Maddox of MSNBC:

Asked by Maddow whether he would seek to simply keep the seat open rather than confirm a nominee outside the mainstream, Schumer replied: “Absolutely.”

“We are not going to make it easy for them to pick a Supreme Court justice,” he said.

Suggesting that could be any nominee, he said: “It’s hard for me to imagine a nominee that Donald Trump would choose that would get Republican support that we [Democrats] could support.”

Schumer is amazingly blunt: if Trump chooses someone Republicans like, Democrats won’t.

Second, are we to believe that had pro-abortion Hillary Clinton won, the Times would be counseling her to choose “a moderate candidate”? Please.

We will talk more about Judge Gorsuch tomorrow. Meanwhile, please also check out here and here.