I think you're talking past him. He's not saying that there aren't legitimate criticisms of the Talley nomination; he's saying that one particularly popular one happens not to be legitimate.

Conversely, if a hack like Talley can muster 51 votes, I'll wonder about the Republican senators.

The ones who are mostly kind of demurring about the pedophile?

To his credit, Grassley has signaled to Trump not to proceed with the Talley nomination.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/12/politics/trump-judicial-picks/...

I'm not sure I'm willing to credit him with more than a Thank You, Captain Obvious, award.

The other nominee, Jeff Mateer, is an obscene choice by either incompetents or malicious people. Mateer has said transgender children are part of "Satan's plan." This psychotic religious nonsense injected into government should not be socially acceptable behavior in a thinking society. Someone should be fired.

But because Trump claims he hires all of the best people, we have to take the selection seriously as intentional. And since the buck stops with the president, you have to accept that he's the one whose incompetent if he isn't neither hiring good people, nor firing them when they fail this spectacularly.