Betty Buller Whitehead: Obama still president

Regarding the Feb. 14 news article “Scalia’s death plunges court, national politics into turmoil”: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his Senate colleagues, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who believe, “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court justice,” following the death of Justice Antonin Scalia would do well to remember the American people spoke quite loudly in 2012.

The popular vote for President Obama was 65,918,507 vs. 60,934,407 for the Republican challenger, Mitt Romney. The Electoral College Vote was 332 for President Obama vs. 206 for Mitt Romney.

Just in case McConnell has neglected to put the date of Jan. 20, 2017 on his calendar, he might want to do so, because President Obama will be in office as president of the United States until that day.

I suppose it’s too much to ask of McConnell to stop trying to obstruct President Obama at every turn, but really, to suggest that President Obama should neglect doing his job for almost another year because Republicans are angry that he now has a chance to nominate a successor to Scalia is just ridiculous.

This story was originally published February 20, 2016 at 1:00 PM with the headline "Betty Buller Whitehead: Obama still president."