On Sunday, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Jeff Sessions, suggested that the country had moved to a place "in which there is not as much deference" -- "this automatic powerful deference" -- given to the President's Supreme Court nominees as in the past. Earlier, he refused to "rule out" using a filibuster.

"I have not favored a filibuster," said the Alabama Republican during an appearance on C-SPAN Newsmakers. "I opposed two nominees in the Clinton years aggressively. Trent Lott said it was time to bring it up for a vote. I voted for cloture to give them a final vote because I did not favor a filibuster technique... But you remember the gang of fourteen? The Democrats were filibustering Bush nominees and they said 'well, in extraordinary circumstances but only in those circumstances should you justify a filibuster.' Maybe that's the new standard. It's not in concrete but that may be the standard that is used in the future."

As you recall, Jeff Sessions is a bit of a racist.  Naturally he can not come right out and admit to this, so he is shopping around for another rationale to oppose Obama's nominee. 

His pointing to the "gang of fourteen" is interesting, because he is wrong (what a shock).  One, the Democrats were not filibustering Bush's Supreme Court nominees.  They should have, but they did not.  Secondly, Sessions is clearly trying to use the old "they did it first" bit to give the Republicans cover. 

The fact is a Supreme Court nominee has never been filibustered.  There have been nominees who were not confirmed, but never filibustered.  If Jeff Sessions wants to play this game the Democrats have more than enough ammo for the fight.  Anything Sessions says is instantly counterable by his past racist comments.  Also, the Democrats have a very strong argument that by electing Obama the American people were fully aware he might have to fill a vacancy on the bench.  Well, now there is a vacancy and he is going to fill it.  If people did not trust him to make this choice he would not have been elected.