title:  Bill Maher And Barney Frank Destroy GOP For Choosing Petty Politics Over Functioning Supreme Court
text: Bill Maher and Barney Frank totally schooled Republicans on Friday night.The Real Time host began by asking his panel to help explain why Senate Republicans are being complete pricks about President Obama picking the next Supreme Court Justice.Maher pointed out that Republicans have wobbled since Obama picked centrist Judge Merrick Garland to replace recently deceased Justice Antonin Scalia. Now they are saying they want to wait until the lame-duck period after the election to make a final decision.Of course, we all know why they want to do this all of a sudden. A centrist like Garland may be the best Republicans can get, especially if the Democrats retain the White House in November. If that happens we can expect Republicans to eagerly confirm Garland in order to prevent a more liberal nominee from being nominated. And if Republicans win the White House they ll wait until 2017 so a more conservative nominee can take the position instead.In other words, Republicans are playing a duplicitous game of politics and the GOP consultant on board the panel actually had the stones to admit that his party is playing politics in an effort to keep the Republican Party from blowing apart. Because if they balk now, they risk pissing off their conservative base. Mitch McConnell knows one thing very clearly,  Rick Wilson said.  If they allow an Obama justice to go forward at this point it will blow a gigantic hole in the Republican coalition like we have never seen before. They have drawn a bright line, they have sworn this is a line they re not going to cross  After Wilson said he s a  shameless political guy,  Maher chimed in by asking,  Aren t you an American first? Wilson responded by saying there is nothing in the Constitution keeping Republicans from doing what they are doing and that GOP leadership is telling the base that they ve drawn a line to keep President Obama from having a lasting legacy on the Supreme Court.Well, that didn t impress former longtime congressman Barney Frank. I spent 40 years as an elected official. I ran for office 20 times,  Frank told Wilson.  I understand the role of politics, but I am disappointed, Rick. The explicit elevation of the need of keeping your coalition together over the functioning of the federal government is awful. Frank went on to say that there is a need for an odd number of Justices on the Court because an even number could lead to tied rulings that don t settle cases and agreed that this is about restricting President Obama to a three year term. Yes, it s in the Constitution that Obama gets to make an appointment,  Frank continued.  And what McConnell is putting forward is a nonsense theory, namely that it s only a 3-year term. Frank also expressed his hope that Republicans would have taken the opportunity to to pull back from their rabid base a little bit because of Donald Trump but it appears they have no intention of doing that. Instead, they appear to be doubling down on their allegiance to the base at their peril.Maher then re-introduced a word he came up with years ago known as  blacktracking,  which is when Republicans change their mind because President Obama agrees with them. As it turns out, it happened again this week because Republicans had no problem with Merrick Garland being nominated for the Supreme Court until President Obama nominated him this week.Here s the video via Twitter.Watch @BillMaher and the #RealTime panel discuss the GOP s  blacktracking  over @POTUS s SCOTUS nomination.https://t.co/5iiG9vrtBp  Real Time (@RealTimers) March 19, 2016 Featured image via video screen capture