The Supreme Court vacancy, a minefield for Republicans

So they blocked him from 2006 through 2008

Within 45 minutes of Bork's nomination to the Court, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork in a nationally televised speech, declaring,

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.[6]

Within 45 minutes of Bork's nomination to the Court, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) took to the Senate floor with a strong condemnation of Bork in a nationally televised speech, declaring,

Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens.[6]

On July 5th, NAACP executive director Benjamin Hooks described their position on the Bork nomination: "We will fight it all the way - until hell freezes over, and then we'll skate across on the ice."[7] A brief was prepared for Joe Biden, head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called the Biden Report. Bork later said in his book The Tempting of America that the report "so thoroughly misrepresented a plain record that it easily qualifies as world class in the category of scurrility".[8] TV ads produced by People For the American Way and narrated by Gregory Peck attacked Bork as an extremist, and Kennedy's speech successfully fueled widespread public skepticism of Bork's nomination. The rapid response of Kennedy's "Robert Bork's America" speech stunned the Reagan White House; though conservatives considered Kennedy's accusations slanderous,[9] the attacks went unanswered for two and a half months.[10]

A hotly contested United States Senate debate over Bork's nomination ensued, partly fueled by strong opposition by civil and women's rights groups concerned with Bork's stated desire to roll back civil rights decisions of the Warren and Burger courts, and his opposition to the right of the Federal government to impose standards of voting fairness upon the states. Bork is one of only three Supreme Court nominees to ever be opposed by the ACLU.[11] Bork was also criticized for being an "advocate of disproportionate powers for the executive branch of Government, almost executive supremacy",[12] as demonstrated by his role in the Saturday Night Massacre.

I heard an interesting idea today --

If they block President Obama's nominations until he's out of office, and a democrat is elected, they could nominate Obama to the Supreme Court.

Hell, Obama could resign today and Biden could appoint him... <Mic Drop!>

Quote:

That may be taking it too far, but there is no reason why we should permit a conservative on the Supreme Court to be replaced by a liberal. The appointee may be there for a long time.

Interesting. So we should go back in time and correct all those instances where a USSC judge leaning one way is replaced by one leaning the other?
You don't seem to understand the basic process. The President gets to nominate whoever he wants. There is no obligation to replace a judge with someone similar.