Should Brett Kavanaugh SCOTUS Nomination Continue?

[Final-Fan]

NightlyPoe said:

Final-Fan said:

Since Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court and Garland isn't, I think you're being selective of your evaluation of who was harmed more ("time wasted"="career advancement torpedoed"?), but I will agree that Kavanaugh took more emotional damage.

I don't believe so.  The success of one and failure of the other came down to simple votes, not the virtues of the two tactics.

Garland knew he didn't have the votes when he accepted the nomination.  Republicans had already stated their intent not to move forward on a nominee.  The whole thing was political theater.  If we're being honest, he basically accepted a gig as a political prop for a few months.

"Republicans decided that they didn't want to vote on Obama's nominee.  It's not the first time that a judicial nominee has seen their nomination lapse by the other side running out the clock.  It's not even the hundredth time."

How many of those times have been Supreme Court nominations? 

• Happened to John Quincy Adams waiting for Jackson.
• The Senate set aside a whole series of nominees from Tyler without a vote, leaving the seat open after the death of a justice about 7 months longer than Scalia waiting for the new president.  3 of the 4 people he nominated received no vote.
• Fillmore also nominated three people to fill a vacancy and was ignored by Congress (to be filled by a president of the same party).
• Andrew Johnson submitted a nominee and not only did Congress not vote for him, but hated him so much they voted the whole seat out of existence.
• LBJ's Chief Justice nominee lost support and never got a vote before he withdrew his nomination (and shortly thereafter resigned as an Associate Justice), basically cancelling the nomination he had in place for a replacement.  Johnson didn't even bother nominating a second person despite having 3 months left in his presidency and it being a time where nominations generally went a lot faster.  In that case I'll note there were intra-party issues with Southern Democrats.

And, as has been pointed out, Democrats telegraphed that they planned to do the same to both Bushes if a vacancy happened in their final years.

"It didn't torpedo his career because the nomination was already torpedoed" is begging the question.  If they hadn't blocked the nomination then Garland would have gone to a vote and the Republicans might have been shamed into voting for him, given how much praise they'd reportedly heaped on him in the past. 

Thank you for this list; I hadn't realized there was as much precedent as there is.  I went to Wikipedia to look into the situations mentioned. 
—Adams had already lost the election before he nominated; not a very similar situation, but you are right to list it in the same broad category. 
(—Jackson's first nomination of Taney seems at a glance to be a very comparable situation; I wonder why you didn't mention it?  Jackson got his way in the end, though.) 
—I agree that Tyler's nominees are as mentioned a similar situation, except that one of his nominees went through eventually (this justice having a very strong and noncontroversial reputation).  But it's worth mentioning that although there were four nominations, there were only two seats.
—I didn't immediately find a lot of information about what was going on with Fillmore; the judge who withdrew his name made me wonder what was going on there.  But definitely belongs on the list
—Johnson's situation does not deserve to be put on this list.  Additionally, can you cite your source on Congress's motivation for reducing the number of justices?  I found nothing to support your claim and more than one source claiming the opposite:  "The legislation owed less to the Republican opposition to Johnson, who signed the act, than to the efforts of Chief Justice Salmon Chase. The first draft of the bill proposed a return to nine justices, thus preventing tie votes on the Court and providing a justice for each circuit. In private communication with influential members of Congress and fellow justices, Chase urged a further reduction in the number of seats in hopes of winning approval for an increase in the justices' salaries."
—LBJ:  good summary. 

Regarding "both Bushes":  this is the first I'm hearing about a proposed block on Dubya's Supreme Court appointments.  And I've already argued that Biden was arguing for Bush to (in the event of a late election year vacancy) wait until after the election and then push a nominee through without the political warfare screwing things up.