Famed Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz told
Newsmax TV on Wednesday that President Barack Obama was "100 percent right" to nominate U.S. Appeals Court Chief Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, saying that "if not for the politics, he would probably be unanimously approved by the Senate."
"He has everything you want in a justice," Dershowitz told "The Steve Malzberg Show" in an interview. "Eighteen years of experience on the court of appeals, experience as a prosecutor, as a private lawyer.
"Top of his class at Harvard College, Harvard Law School," he continued. "Just an all-around terrific person."
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As both Democrats and Republicans are citing their constitutional responsibilities in the brewing fight over Garland's nomination, Dershowitz challenged presidential candidate Ted Cruz — "my former student … who is running as the constitutional candidate" — to provide his insights on the impending stalemate.
"I want to know what you think of the Senate refusing to perform its constitutional duty," the professor declared. "Let him explain how, as a constitutional scholar, he can justify what his colleagues are going to do in the Senate and what he will probably do because he's still a sitting United States senator.
"How can he justify not doing what he's supposed to do with the Constitution advising and consenting? The Constitution doesn't provide for not doing anything. The Senate has a job to do and it should do it."
Dershowitz told Malzberg that he was "pleasantly surprised" that Obama did not nominate a minority to succeed Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last month.
"I think it's about time we stopped picking people based on their race, gender, ethnicity, or political views and go back to what Herbert Hoover did when he appointed Benjamin Cardoza to replace Oliver Wendell Holmes," Dershowitz said, referring to the 1932 decision by the Republican president.
"He said: 'I don't care if he's a Democrat. I don't care what his politics are. I want the most qualified judge in the United States to serve on the Supreme Court.'
"We have to stop politicizing the nomination process of the Supreme Court," the professor added. "It's not good enough to say both sides do it. It's just not good enough."
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