First, I learned that Corey Booker is a ridiculous, narcissistic man-child who should never be within 1000 miles of the White House.
His dumbness was not revealed primarily by his coming up with his idiotic stunt of “bravely” revealing classified information in the most hackneyed, transparently publicity-seeking way. (Although that alone would pretty much guarantee him a spot in the playoffs, if hack politicians formed a league to compete to try to out-dumb each other.)
No, his dumbness only reached full flower when some smart guys in the GOP pre-emptively de-classified the info he was going to reveal the night before he was set to take his star turn as brave secret-revealer… and he STILL WENT THROUGH WITH IT! He got up there like a dope — knowing that the secret info he was going to dramatically release was no longer secret, and had already been released – and he read the same dopey, self-dramatizing script anyway.
And the stupidity chocolate sauce on his bonehead sundae was the fact that he set up the secret info dump by ominously saying that it would reveal Brett Kavanaugh’s position on the police’s use of ethnic profiling. (Otherwise known by competent police everywhere as, “Not wasting your time frisking octogenarian Amish people when you are looking to bust a meth ring run by 20-something Aryan Brotherhood members with swastika tattoos on their necks.”)
And it turns out that Brett Kavanaugh’s scary, scary take on ethnic profiling was that – pause for spooky organ sting – he’s against it. Cue the sad trombones, as kooky Corey’s political ambitions slowly deflate.
Plus, he called himself Spartacus. Everyone knows that the first rule of being Spartacus is that you don’t dramatically call yourself Spartacus. Especially considering that Spartacus is not known for that time when he tried to pompously reveal state secrets in front of the Roman Senate, only to have the Senators laugh at him because the state secrets had already been revealed, and he had to leave the Forum with his toga tucked between his legs.
Another thing I learned is that Kamala Harris is an empty suit who almost managed to look like a statesman, if only because she was sitting next to Corey. She is allegedly an attorney, and allegedly at least semi-smart, but neither of those qualities was on display at the hearings. She asked a dramatic series of questions about whether Kavanaugh had ever spoken to any attorney from a giant law firm in DC about the Mueller investigation. Kavanaugh looked confused, mentioned that hundreds of attorneys work there, asked if she was thinking of some specific incident, and then said that he didn’t remember any such conversation specifically.
And she did nothing. She didn’t dramatically leap up and say, “Ah HA! Bailiff, bring in the star witness, who will testify that Mr. Kavanaugh did in fact talk with a principle partner in that law firm, and that he made video and audio recordings of that conversation, which will reveal that Mr. Kavanaugh is a Tea Partier, and a Mason, and quite possibly a pedophile serial murderer!”
Nope. She just said something like, “Huh.” Asked later about whether she believes that he did have some incriminating conversation, one of her (almost certainly embarrassed) aides said, “We have reason to believe that a conversation happened, and are continuing to pursue it.”
Wow. Nice going, Nancy Drew. You’ve practically cracked the case of The Vague, Inconsequential Hypothetical Conversation that Might Possibly Have Taken Place.
But at least she didn’t call herself Spartacus-ina, Spartacus’ lesser known little sister. So she’s got that going for her.
But I don’t want to suggest it was only Booker and Harris beclowning themselves. It was also the other Dems on the committee. Dick “no one ever calls him Richard” Durbin and Richard “everyone secretly calls him Dick” Blumenthal also asked 15-minute “questions” that weren’t honest inquiries, but tendentious, misleading set-ups for passive-aggressive insults. All of which Kavanaugh dispatched without breaking a sweat.
Even Lizzie Warren tried to entrap Kavanaugh into a discussion of obscure treaties that created Indian reservations in the 19th century. “My people deserve a response,” the pasty-faced professor said.
“Your people?” Kavanaugh asked slyly. “You mean the northeastern tribe of Caucasian Academics?”
(Okay, I made that last part up. Because a day may come, when the courage of we Men of the West falters, and our ability to continue a streak of uninterrupted columns with a Lizzie Warren #wemustneverstopmockingher joke finally fails us. But IT IS NOT THIS DAY!) (If you don’t get that reference, Google “Aragorn at the Black Gate speech,” and thank me later.)
But I also don’t want to suggest that it was only the elected Democrats in the room who looked like total jerks. It was also the Democrats in the audience.
So now we also know that Democrats should not be allowed in to Supreme Court hearings unless they are vigorously vetted to be sure that they’re not the kind of immature jackasses who will scream and chant and do their best to disrupt the proceedings. After about the tenth idiot jumped up and started hollering, I began to get the idea that they may not actually have any substantive arguments to make. (I know: call me Sherlock and congratulate me for cracking the case of the “Wailing Jackasses of Pennsylvania Avenue.” My favorite part is when the Dem senators all get into a big wooden barrel and go over the Reichenbach Falls with Moriarty, never to be heard from again.)
I mean, has any human, in any time or any place, ever uttered the words, “You know, on second thought, that hateful crone shrieks a good point? I may have to re-think my stance on constitutional originalism?” (Spoiler alert: they have not.)
Coincidentally, I also learned that the police at judicial hearings go way too heavily on the, “Come now, please let me escort you out in a civilized manner,” and way too lightly on the, “Let’s see what happens when I fire this taser probe into your crotch and we send a little Edison-juice down the wire.”
Not that I’d be a stickler. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Taser. It could be some bear mace, or a pepper ball, or a good facial squirting with the urine from a pregnant deer.
Wait. That last one might be for hunting. Either way, I’d be open to squirting a few of the ill-mannered louts with the female deer urine, then releasing a 10-point rutting buck into the room, and letting nature take its course.
Where was I?
Oh yeah. Thoughtful leftist discourse.
There ain’t any. There’s just tantrums and insults and black-belt-level whining.
But it didn’t work, and Kavanaugh’s going to the Supreme Court. So stick it, Linda Sarsour and your hordes of yammering fascist weirdos.
The last lesson I learned from the Kavanaugh hearings is that sweet, sweet schadenfreude never gets old. Because as I watched MSM commentators venting their frustration that Kavanaugh wouldn’t directly answer questions about how he’d rule on abortion or a dozen other hot button issues, I couldn’t help but think back to days of yore.
And as you know, “days of yore” traditionally refers to the early summer of 1987, when a bristly originalist genius named Robert Bork was nominated for the Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan (peace be upon him).
Before then, the tradition had been that the opposing party would only vote against judicial nominees in the rare instance when a serious case could be made that a judge was incompetent or unqualified. Political ideology alone was not seen as a justification for voting against a nominee. Presidents nominated judges who lined up with their judicial philosophy, hearings determined whether the nominee had any serious flaws, and they were then voted on.
Bork was obviously extremely qualified, but the Democrats of that day – led by the Senior Inebriated Dirigible and Aquatic Homicide Aficianado™ Ted Kennedy – broke with that precedent, and viciously and dishonestly smeared Bork because of his ideology. He answered their questions honestly, and they twisted and lied about his answers, and they killed his nomination. Since then, all Supreme Court nominations have turned into partisan political battles, won on party-line votes.
Savvy nominees learned from Bork – and from the rule stated by Ruth Bader Ginsburg – to meet dishonesty with guile. If the senators from the opposing party are going to pepper them with biased, specious questions that they pretend are genuine, the nominees will respond with bland, content-less boilerplate about precedent and stare decisis and nolo contendre and carpe diem and other Latin phrases that I don’t understand.
So it was sweet to watch the frustrated hacks at CNN and MSNBC whining that Kavanaugh wouldn’t answer any questions in ways that would allow them to torpedo his nomination.
But it was even sweeter to reflect, yet again, that we owe a great debt to the holder of the highest Simpson Face Punchability Index™ of all time: Harry Reid. The blessedly EX-Senator – arrogantly, and against the warnings of everyone’s favorite Chinless Cartoon Turtle Mitch McConnell – triggered the “nuclear” option that reduced the number of yes votes necessary to confirm a judge from 60 to 50.
So today, we have Neil Gorsuch on the court, and we will soon have “you say Kavanaugh but I say Kava-YES!” on the court right beside him. Neither of them received 60 votes, but both of them are going to be on the court, thanks to Harry Cassidy and the Chappaquiddick Kid.
Thanks, guys!
Martin Simpson 