The difference is that you aren’t up for election and having to demonstrate your purity to survive the primary.
Yeah, but it’s been this way for a while now. The days of 98-0 Scalia confirmations are over. It is a political war now. But much like the Dems couldn’t find anything on Barrett a couple of years ago, our side has nothing on Jackson and these feeble attacks look ridiculous.
Almost as ridiculous as Cory Booker and his crying and hugging. So proud, he was, that an African American woman was sitting in that seat. Well, it was pretty much a fait accompli when the President said that he would only consider such a person in the first place. It made his tears seem forced to me.
I’d like to watch that documentary if you can remember the name of it.
Here it is. I thought it was on Netflix but it was PBS/Frontline…
I think it is also available on YouTube. Highly recommended, and fair - this is one case where both sides played hijinx with the nomination process over the years. And it was the Bork nomination (Biden involved), not Clarence Thomas, that got this whole thing rolling:
The documentary traces how a 30-year-old grievance — starting with the bruising confirmation hearing of President Reagan’s failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork, presided over by then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) — sparked a vow from the then-freshman Senator McConnell to retaliate, and how he made good on that promise in the years to come.
Or are posturing for social media notoriety.
I watched that a while back and don’t think they mentioned that Bork had stepped up when Elliot Richardson resigned rather than do Nixon’s dirty work and fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox (do I misremember?)
But what did cross the line was that this was back when home VCRs were new, so some functionary went to Bork’s local video store to find out if his rentals included porn, and what kind.
A few years later, Douglas Ginsberg was torpedoed for (gasp!) smoking weed. The character assassination is really something.
I wondered about that. No fair documentary would omit this rather significant fact, and to expect Democrats to shrug and overlook it in selecting a Supreme Court justice was unreasonable in my view.
Agreed that a line was crossed to review Bork’s local video store. (I have not watched the documentary.)
Yeah, Barrett was qualified, and there was really no reason to hassle her. I suspect i hate her politics. But i trust her to do her job.
I can’t find it, but Bork gave testimony regarding that situation at his confirmation hearings. Bork offered to refuse and resign as well. The three (can’t remember the deputy AG) got together and basically said that we can’t internally carpet bomb the Justice Department. How can we get around this? Richardson and (other guy) had during their confirmation hearings promised not to fire the special prosecutor. Bork (at least at the time) got his position without a Senate confirmation.
The three decided that to show a message to Nixon, Richardson and the other guy would refuse and resign, and Bork would fire the special prosecutor so that the Justice Department had a head, and then immediately appoint a new special prosecutor, and took action to preserve all investigative work and all papers. He kept on all important staff. Bork did all of this and kept his promise. Richardson appeared at Bork’s confirmation hearing and substantiated Bork’s testimony in this matter and said that Bork acted honorably.
This retconned idea that Bork was rejected because of the Saturday Night Massacre is a liberal fiction. That was used as a false hook to reject him because he was a conservative.
My father, a liberal who chewed the rejection of Bork, did not speak to the Saturday night massacre. He said that Bork had made a career of being an asshole and pushed an extreme judicial philosophy.
I mean liberals opposing Barrett or conservatives opposing Jackson because they disagree with their respective politics is completely valid. We just have to go through this kayfabe where the opponents have to come up with a reason it’s actually about ethics or experience or something. Even though everyone knows it’s because like or not the SCOTUS is a 9-member body that gets to vote on a whole host of political outcomes and we don’t all agree on what those outcomes should be.
EDIT: And obviously experience to some degree and definitely ethics is also a reason to oppose a judge, when it applies, it’s just a bit silly to think those are the only valid reasons.
I’m just starting to read this 90+ post thread, so perhaps this has already been remarked:
And Republicans haven’t gotten over the Clarence Thomas hearings to this day. And Harrold Carswell.
And Bork.
Jackson could publicly say “I endorse Putin, Communism, Kim Jong Un, partial-and-full-birth abortion, everything that makes Republicans screech in horror” and grin and still coast easily to confirmation - and she should GRIN with that knowledge.
Excerpts from three Wikipedia pages, for Carswell, Haynsworth, and Bork:
the Senate rejected Carswell’s nomination on April 8, 1970, by a 45–51 vote,[5] with 13 Republicans joining 38 Democrats in voting “no”.[17]
Haynsworth’s nomination was defeated by a 55–45 vote on November 21, 1969.[3] Nineteen Democrats – of whom only Mike Gravel of Alaska represented a state outside the South – and 26 Republicans voted for Haynsworth while 38 Democrats and seventeen Republicans voted against the nomination.[7]
On October 23, 1987, the Senate denied Bork’s confirmation, with 42 Senators voting in favor and 58 voting against. Two Democratic senators, David Boren (D-OK) and Ernest Hollings (D-SC), voted in his favor, while six Republican senators–John Chafee (R-RI), Bob Packwood (R-OR), Arlen Specter (R-PA), Robert Stafford (R-VT), John Warner (R-VA), and Lowell P. Weicker Jr. (R-CT)–voted against Bork.[39] His defeat in the Senate was the worst of any Supreme Court nominee since George Washington Woodward was defeated 20–29 in 1845, and the third-worst on record.
These hearings have certainly demonstrated that mediocrity is well-represented in Congress, at least.
Where did you get this optimistic opinion?
Also of note, George W. Bush was forced to withdraw the nomination of Harriet Miers despite the Senate having a 55R/45D majority when it became clear that even many Republican Senators would balk at confirming her. She had actually been recommended by Democratic Senator Harry Reid, but her severe lack of credentials drew criticism from both sides of the aisle and particularly Republican fears that she would be “another Souter.”
The reason that she would be confirmed is not in spite of being able to say such things, but because she is the sort of person who wouldn’t.
And she’d actually probably pick up votes from Republicans if she endorsed Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Of course you know this is false.
Manchin just announced he will vote to confirm her. This is actually breaking news on CNN.