Noah Feldman, Columnist

Obama Makes a Smart Bet for the Supreme Court

Merrick Garland has checked all the boxes to get confirmed. Even his age and race are auspicious.

March 16, 2016 at 3:40 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

That guy.
Photographer: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Merrick Garland is the safest possible pick for President Barack Obama. Extraordinarily well-qualified, moderate and often pro-prosecution, Garland has been considered a potential Supreme Court nominee almost since Bill Clinton put him on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in 1997. But if he isn’t confirmed, it isn’t a permanent loss for Democrats. Sri Srinivasan, his much younger near-clone, will still be waiting in the wings as a confirmable moderate Democratic back-up.

Among court-watchers, it’s long been understood that Garland needed unique circumstances to be nominated: the retiree had to be a white man, and the Senate had to be Republican. Otherwise, why would a Democratic president nominate a moderate white man?