In 2008, Mitch McConnell railed against election-year judicial appointment delays, John Oliver notes

The fight over whether President Obama should appoint the Supreme Court justice who replaces the late conservative stalwart Antonin Scalia, thus changing the ideological balance of the court, is pretty nakedly partisan. In 2006, Obama, then a senator, tried to filibuster the appointment of Samuel Alito, nominated by George W. Bush — Obama called that a mistake earlier this week. Now Obama points out that it is right there in the Constitution that he "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint.... judges of the Supreme Court."

On the other side, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell immediately ruled out Obama appointing Scalia's replacement, and after some defections, fellow Republican senators and most presidential candidates are falling in line behind him. When Republicans were in the Senate minority and a Republican president was trying to appoint federal judges with lifetime appointments, however, McConnell and his colleagues were singing a very different tune.

On Sunday's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver explained one precedent Republicans are widely misusing to block Obama's future nominee: the Thurmond Rule, apparently instituted by the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) in the 1960s. He then played a clip of McConnell in 2008 decrying Democratic "obsession" with "the so-called Thurmond Rule, under which the Senate supposedly stops confirming judges in a presidential election year." The rule "doesn't exist," McConnell added. "There is no such rule." Yes, Oliver said, "it seems the Thurmond Rule is a bit like God: When things are going your way, you don't bring it up a lot, but as soon as you're in trouble, it is all you that talk about." Oliver's hard look at this "bulls--t" rule is full of NSFW language:

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If you want a clean look at what McConnell said when the shoe was on the other foot — "This seeming obsession with a rule that doesn't exist is just an excuse for our colleagues to run out the clock on qualified nominees who are waiting to fill badly needed vacancies," for example — you can watch the broader speech at C-SPAN below. In it, he does make one pretty indisputable point: "No party is without blame in the confirmation process." Peter Weber