McCain Refuses To Vote To Confirm Lynch

So poi­so­nous has par­ti­san­ship become in Washington that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, nor­mal­ly a bea­con of rea­son, has announced that he’ll vote against con­firm­ing Brooklyn fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tor Loretta Lynch as U.S. attor­ney general.

Not because Lynch is unqual­i­fied. She’s superbly capa­ble of serv­ing as America’s top lawyer.

Not because back­ground checks have found unto­ward behav­ior by Lynch. Her pro­bity is absolute­ly unblemished.

Instead, McCain would spurn Lynch as pay­back for President Obama issu­ing an exec­u­tive action to let mil­lions of undoc­u­ment­ed immi­grants live and work in the coun­try. (A judge has stayed the President’s order.)

Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Lynch offered no opin­ion about the legal­i­ty of Obama’s action, say­ing only that Justice Department lawyers seemed to have engaged in a “rea­son­able” dis­cus­sion about the pol­i­cy, and that any advice she offered as attor­ney gen­er­al would be “thor­ough,” “objec­tive” and “com­plete­ly independent.”

Brushing by such nuances, a McCain spokesman said, “No, he’s not vot­ing for her, because she called the Obama exec­u­tive action on immi­gra­tion ‘rea­son­able.’ ”

A senator’s duty when con­sid­er­ing a nom­i­nee is to ensure that the per­son is qual­i­fied for the post, while accept­ing that Presidents choose indi­vid­u­als who are in sync with their philoso­phies. Otherwise, Democrats and Republicans would nev­er approve the oth­er party’s nominees.

Sadly, McCain is breach­ing his oblig­a­tion to the nation. His stance is all the more dis­tress­ing because he was a mem­ber of the bipar­ti­san “Gang of Eight” that worked to pass a com­pre­hen­sive immi­gra­tion bill in 2013.

For a bit of san­i­ty, here’s what McCain’s col­league Chuck Grassley — one of just four Republicans who have expressed sup­port for Lynch — said at her hearing:

“If we can’t con­firm Loretta Lynch, then I don’t believe we can con­firm any­one. And I would like to remind my col­leagues that the President’s immi­gra­tion poli­cies are not seek­ing con­fir­ma­tion today.”

McCain may be run­ning scared because he could face a GOP pri­ma­ry chal­lenge for reelec­tion next year. That could be an expla­na­tion, but it is no excuse for imper­il­ing con­fir­ma­tion of an exem­plary pub­lic ser­vant who would become the nation’s first African-American female AG​.nydai​lynews​.com.