ANDREW NAPOLITANO: Now about Judge Garland. He is pro-abortion and he is anti-gun. On almost all other issues that would come to the court, and have come to him -- I know of his record because he's got a 19-year track record in the federal appellate court in Washington. On almost all other issues, he's center-right. And on many issues he's very close to where Justice Scalia was.
STEVE DOOCY (HOST): And that's why for, when you look at what President Obama has done, politically, it's brilliant. Because he's put somebody out there who doesn't have -- he looks like the kind of guy they would like. And yet, ultimately, you say, because the Republicans have been so clear, they don't even want to have a hearing on this guy. The president is simply putting the name out there, knowing it's not going to happen, just for political gain.
NAPOLITANO: Because he wants to beat up on the Republicans. Because there are about six Republican senators in very tight reelection races. Those six do not want this, whether or not Judge Garland should get a hearing, to be an issue in their races. The president believes by using Judge Garland -- this is a little in the weeds, but I think this is his thinking -- by using Judge Garland, whom he doesn't even want on the court because this guy is nowhere near the president's ideology.
DOOCY: Right. He's not nearly far left enough.
NAPOLITANO: Correct. Picture him as an Anthony Kennedy-type, as a middle of the road swing vote, going sometimes with the liberals and sometimes with the conservatives. The president wants to beat up on the Senate. He wants a Democratic Senate to succeed this Senate because he believes that his successor, whoever it is, will choose the person to fit that role, and that choice will be far more to the left than Judge Garland.
DOOCY: So just the fact that you said he doesn't even want this guy on the court. But because the next person won't just pick the next justice, could pick two or three or four.
NAPOLITANO: Correct. Let's put it this way. If Judge Garland is not confirmed -- and I don't think he will be because I think the Republicans are going to hold firm on this and they have commitments on this from the three likely candidates for president -- his reputation, his personhood, his history, will all be beaten up, rolled over, devoured for Barack Obama's political desires to be beat up on Mitch McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate. And what else suffers? The court.
