Obama to pick Supreme Court nominee with Republican support: Biden

The White House would seek to avoid a head-on clash with the Republican-controlled Senate by searching for a consensus Supreme Court nominee who can attract support from Senate Republicans, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said on Thursday.

"The Senate gets to have a say. So in order to get this done, the president is not going to be able to go out -- nor would it be his instinct anyway -- to pick the most liberal jurist in the nation and put them on the court," Biden said in a a radio interview aired on Thursay.

"There are plenty of judges who are on high courts already who have had unanimous support of the Republicans," he added.

Biden's comments on the possible replacement of Justice Antonin Scalia, who died last Saturday, came as Republicans differed among themselves on whether they should block any nomination by Obama.

Shortly after the news of Scalia's death came out, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he did not think Obama should nominate anyone as his presidency was to end in 11 months.

McConnell, together with several Republican senators who would face re-election this year, insisted that Obama should leave the nomination to the next president, a demand rebuked by Democratic leaders.

Despite his initial concurrence with McConnell and other Republican senators, Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, backtracked and said he had not ruled out holding a hearing on Obama's Supreme Court pick. Endit