A memo was delivered to this column — obviously by mistake, given its contents. It had clearly been dropped, trampled on, recovered, and then delivered wrongly because the address was by then unclear, and parts of it were unintelligible: Washington weather has been paralyzingly awful (an inch of snow).

The memo was … interesting. The recipient’s name was undecipherable, but from the content, it is fair to conclude it was someone in the White House. The author’s first name was David; the last name was unintelligible (but may have begun with a “P”), as was the top of the memo which might have had an organization’s name on it. The subject matter was blurred but was presumably “Taking Advantage of Impending SCOTUS vacancy.” Some of the unintelligible parts of the memo have been filled in, but only where they were obvious.

DATE:                                    JANUARY 31, 2022

MEMORANDUM FOR:      [Unintelligible]

FROM:                                   DAVID [unintelligible]

SUBJECT:                              Taking Advantage of Impending SCOTUS Vacancy

The impending Supreme Court vacancy presents a fate-given opportunity for President Joe Biden to shore up his so-far disastrous presidency — but not in the way small minds are thinking.

The temptation the president will be subjected to, reinforced by the advisors the president has surrounded himself with (losers all), will be to focus on getting someone — actually, anyone — confirmed before the November elections.

That shows the shallowness of their thinking. Whoever they get confirmed will make little or no difference on the court: Donald Trump — may he burn in hell (too bad there isn’t one) — saw to that.

What counts are the November elections, and the Democrats are on track to suffer massive losses.

Even —and this is the important part (worth waking POTUS up from his afternoon nap to read) — even black Americans are deserting the party in droves. That is partly because of the administration’s brain-dead vaccination policy, which hurts lower-income groups. Does anyone in the WH realize that most black Americans are in the lower-income groups? Does anyone in the WH know any black people in lower-income groups?

So, to recap: the WH should keep its collective eye on the ball, which is the November elections.

The only question they should be focused on is: What can the WH do to encourage Republicans to self-destruct?

Answer: Make the opportunity to self-destruct irresistible for Republicans (rarely a difficult task).

The way to do that is to nominate black women (of course) but black women who are unqualified for the job, and then sit back and let the Republicans defeat them.

Of course, the president shouldn’t admit they are unqualified. (That has to be said because there is a more-than-trivial danger that the president in an, er, unguarded moment at an ice cream shop might give the game away.) He really has to be managed properly in this case (i.e., better than he has been), but then that would be true going into the November elections even if there weren’t a SCOTUS vacancy.

The nominees should be unqualified, but not ridiculously so. They should receive WH support, of course, but there should be just enough plausibility to the Republicans’ claims so that they will make them!

Think what happens. The Rs defeat black female nominee #1.

One week later the president nominates black female #2.

A very short time later — the Senate majority leader must be instructed to move faster than that body normally does — the Rs defeat black female nominee #2.

If the president can’t see how this plays out, someone must explain to him that we want this to happen five, maybe six times before November.

The point is to give the Rs ample opportunity to defeat black female nominees. What a record for Democrats to run on this fall!! Gadzooks! Maybe there is a god after all! Just kidding!

One danger is that the Republicans catch on. That’s not likely to happen. It is certainly not likely to happen before they’ve defeated three or four nominees.

That’s probably enough to poison the well of black voters for the Rs in November.

But what, small minds in the WH (is there any other kind?) may ask, happens if in fact no nominee gets confirmed and the Republicans take the Senate in November, ensuring that no nominee ever gets confirmed?

Not to worry. Keep your eye on the big ball.

Even if the Democrats lose SCOTUS for another generation, it shouldn’t matter: Democrats don’t really have to follow its dictates anyway. The entrenched bureaucracy (of course there’s a Deep State — what the hell do you think Democrats have been building for the last 70 years!) can make end runs around almost any SCOTUS decision. Maybe not all, but most of them.

What’s important is keeping the country moving in the proper direction: toward government control of most of the institutions in this country. Our European friends are way ahead of us in that regard. They really do seem to care about their people more than we do: governments in Europe are much more hands-on in managing their citizens’ lives. We have done much to catch up in recent years — ObamaCare was a giant step in that direction — but there is still much to be done.

We are paying too much attention to the courts. Our most notable success in the past, as any fool can see, has been in the academy. We have scored touchdown after touchdown there.

But now we need action in Congress to get three essential things accomplished (is there anyone in the WH who can count to three?): Enacting the so-called “Freedom to Vote Act” (great title — mine!), admitting D.C. and Puerto Rico to the Union, and increasing the size of the Supreme Court.

Allowing the struggle to fill one seat on the Court today to get in the way of those imperatives is folly.

Alas, folly has been the hallmark of this [the rest of the memo is undecipherable].

Daniel Oliver is Chairman of the Board of the Education and Research Institute and a Director of Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy in San Francisco. In addition to serving as Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission under President Reagan, he was Executive Editor and subsequently Chairman of the Board of William F. Buckley Jr.’s National Review.

Email Daniel Oliver at Daniel.Oliver@TheCandidAmerican.com.