quite so sobber and quite so discreet and in the correspondence that he had with his old friend harry blackman who was a judge at the time on the a circuit back in minnesota, we see the real burger, on labor days 967, burger wrote, quote, if i were to standstill i would i'm sure want to shoot myself in later years. these guys referring to the supreme court justices, these guys just can't be write, there's nothing to do but resist. in another letter to blackman in march 1969 which was about four weeks before he was named to the court, he was very sharply critical of the court referring to president nixon by initials observed rn can only straighten that place out if he gets four appointments. if he gets four appointments and, of course, he got four appointments. richard nixon was a very lucky man. he got burger first, powell and rhenquist all within the first three years of his first administration and that changed, enabled the reversal that we see in the burger courts. i was signing books last week in the annual convention and a judge who i won't name, a judge known to all of you saw the stack

quite so sobber and quite so discreet and in the correspondence that he had with his old friend harry blackmanwho was a judge at the time on the a circuit back in minnesota, we see the real burger, on labor days 967, burger wrote, quote, if i were to standstill i would i'm sure want to shoot myself in later years. these guys referring to the supreme court justices, these guys just can't be write, there's nothing to do but resist. in another letter to blackman in march 1969 which was about four weeks before he was named to the court, he was very sharply critical of the court referring to president nixon by initials observed rn can only straighten that place out if he gets four appointments. if he gets four appointments

, in the nixon administration it took three nominees to fill the seat that ultimately went to harry blackman. ronald reagan had to nominate three people before anthony kennedy was confirmed. what's unprecedented if it happens is simply not voting. that has never been done as a mode of obstruction. you can vote down nominees. that's been done many times. i think that would be politically difficult, simply not to vote on any of hillary clinton's nominees, but voting no is certainly an appropriate function of what senators can do. >> david, can we say it, eight justices? >> we can't because you have got tied. >> well, you can. that's the ted cruz argument. i heard jeffrey toobin, who as we both know is a supreme court scholar, screaming in disgust when ted cruz made that statement. functionally, he jumped on one of the justices saying things day to day are working the same way. he said, see, it's okay. but it isn't okay. >> it's an even number. here's the way you ought to hear that remark. these are tactics. these are bids being laid down in advance of the information about how strong will the