President Barack Obama was going about his business at a press conference in Rancho Mirage, California for the United States ASEAN Leaders Conference when he decided to take questions from a few of the many reporters that attended the event on Tuesday.

Guess what? The reporters didn’t give a flying you-know-what about the leaders conference or the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).

They cared about one thing. They cared about how Obama would go about replacing the recently deceased U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

“I’m shocked,” remarked Obama, when the first question from a journalist from the Associated Press wasn’t about anything other than Scalia and the SCOTUS.

If you’ve been living under a rock this week, you aren’t aware of the dirt the GOP has kicked up regarding the president abiding the constitution (according to them) and waiting for the next person in the Oval Office to nominate a justice in 2017.

Obama had something to say to that and to the whole ordeal in general. Check it out in the following bookmarked footage:

Here’s a snippet (and more) of what he had to say:

“The Constitution is pretty clear about what’s supposed to happen now. When there is a vacancy on the Supreme Court, the President of the United States is to nominate someone. The Senate is to consider that nomination, and either they disapprove of that nomination or that nominee is elevated to the Supreme Court. Historically, this has not been viewed as a question. There’s no unwritten law that says this can only be done in off years. That’s not in the constitutional text. I’m amused when I hear people that claim to be strict interpreters of the Constitution suddenly reading into it, a whole series of provisions that aren’t there. There is more than enough time for the Senate to consider, in a thoughtful way, the record of a nominee that I present and to make a decision. And with respect to our process we’re going to do the same thing in respect to Justice Kagan’s nomination and Justice Sotomayor’s nomination, we’re going to find someone who is an outstanding legal mind, somebody who cares deeply about our democracy and cares about rule of law. There’s not going to be a particular position on a particular issue that determines whether or not I nominate them, but I’m going to nominate somebody who’s indisputably qualified for the seat and any fair-minded person — even someone who disagreed with my politics — would say would serve with honor and integrity on the court.

“Now part of the problem that we have here is we’ve almost gotten accustomed to how obstructionist the Senate’s become when it comes to nominations. I mean I’ve got 14 nominations that have been pending that were unanimously approved by the judiciary committee. So Republicans and Democrats on the judiciary committee all agreed that they were well-qualified for the position and yet we can’t get a vote on those individuals. So in some ways this argument is just an extension of what we’ve seen in the Senate generally, and not just on judiciary nominees …

The fact that we’ve almost grown accustomed to a situation that is almost unprecedented where every nomination is contested, everything is blocked, regardless of how qualified the person is, even when there’s no ideological objection to them … the fact that it’s that hard that we’re even discussing this is a measure of how, unfortunately, the venom and rancor in Washington has prevented us from getting basic work done.”

He knows what’s really going on in Washington. Elected officials that don’t belong to his party are deathly afraid of going along with anything he proposes — even if they whole-heartedly agree with it — for fear that it’ll be used as “venom” (to reuse that word) by someone running against them to beat them in a future election. In many circles in this country, Obama’s name is that much of a bad word. Just go on Facebook.

As for Senator Mitch McConnell and company saying that Obama shouldn’t nominate another justice, well, that’s not how you play cards, is it? You go over the rules in the beginning, and that’s that.

Even Alex Rodriguez doesn’t argue with the umpire when he swings and misses at the third strike.

The Slot