He started out saying that the independent judiciary is detailed in Article 1, and that it was clearly a priority for the framers of the constitution. I also learned that Article 2 is the Executive article, and it is under this article that the constitution says that the president nominates supreme court justices and with the senates advice and consent these nominations can be confirmed. The president is instructed to choose based on fitness and qualifications, and not on nepotism or cronyism. The president is selected for this job because he is thought to be more insulated from the "passions and prejudices of the people".
Nowhere in the constitution does it say that the senate, or the people, should have any part in nominating judges. The Federalist Papers have an article by Hamilton that specifically says there shall be "no exertion of choice on the part of the Senate". Nowhere does it say that no SCOTUS judges may be nominated in the last year. To his knowledge our current VP Biden was the first to say that a lame duck president should not nominate--which was an easy gotcha for the Republicans. Brudney said that our system of checks and balances, and the separation of powers, is sometimes unproductive. You could say that. Stalemate potential is necessary in a principle-driven constitution that provides us with freedoms, and protects us from rash decisions by any branch of our government.