Story highlights Jeffrey Toobin: Supreme Court nominee is unlikely to survive political maelstrom

Toobin says Republicans will likely not bend and allow hearing or vote on Merrick Garland

Cost of allowing Obama pick who could tip court is too great for GOP, he says

Jeffrey Toobin is CNN's senior legal analyst and author of "The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court." The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) Should Merrick Garland's friends be offering him congratulations -- or condolences? After a distinguished career in public service, Garland has been tapped for the legal profession's highest honor -- to be a Supreme Court justice. But President Barack Obama's nomination thrusts Garland into a political maelstrom he is unlikely to survive -- at least as a judge on the nation's highest court.

Garland, who is 63, has had a storybook career. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School (like the justice he would be replacing, Antonin Scalia), was clerk for a pair of legendary judges (Henry Friendly and William Brennan), and a partner at a prominent law firm -- which he gave up to work as a line prosecutor in the District of Columbia.

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He was a Justice Department official and then judge for the last 18 years on the second most important court in the nation.

The issue of Garland's qualifications to be on the Supreme Court is beyond question.

But Republicans have said that because Obama is in the last year of his term, the seat on the court should be determined by the voters -- who will be choosing the next president. They have vowed, in very explicit terms, to refuse to give Garland a hearing or a vote.

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