“Gibberish”? Do you know what they said? Or is your judgement predicated on their view that the nomination of Mr Sessions is important enough that public protest is necessary?
Let’s test that theory. I propose the following test: if Garland takes a seat on the Supreme Court, I’ll agree that it was a huge difference – enough to affect the real world.
If Trump’s nominee takes the seat, then you agree it was too small a difference to actually affect the real world outcome.
Or did you want to argue that perhaps I would win the debate in the real world but you would win in a world of your theoretical constructs?
"…less than a year ago, Booker was sharing “one of my life’s greatest moments” with Sessions, speaking at a ceremony awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to the “foot soldiers” who had participated in the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.
Booker coauthored the legislation granting the award with Sessions.
“This is truly one of my life’s greatest moments,” Booker said at the February 2016 ceremony. “I am humbled to be able to participate here and pay tribute to some of the extraordinary Americans whose footsteps paved the way for me and my generation. I feel blessed and honored to have partnered with Senator Sessions in being the Senate sponsors of this important award. This award is one of the highest civilian honors our nation can bestow, and it is clearly fitting to give this tribute to the courageous foot soldiers.”
I am saying that co-sponsoring a civil rights award with someone and then opposing that someone on the basis of his “hostility toward civil rights” is hypocritical, yes. If he, one year ago, considered Sessions to be hostile to civil rights, Booker could have easily found another sponsor, couldn’t he?
Really? I can be glad that somebody is sufficiently willing to pay lip service to civil rights to support a civil rights award, without necessarily believing that their genuine commitment to civil rights is adequate to justify putting them at the helm of the judicial defense of civil rights.
Similarly, while I approve of ExxonMobil’s long-overdue 2014 acknowledgement of the risks of climate change, that doesn’t mean that I think ExxonMobil should be trusted with overseeing federal involvement in climate science.
Those weren’t Booker’s words (at least containing the phrase “civil rights”). His actual statement was much longer, but didn’t say “hostility towards civil rights”.
Rejecting a hardline radical with bizarre, anti-privacy views like Bork and then immediately accepting the president’s next nominee is not the same thing as refusing to staff an entire bureau with the intent of effectively nullifying that bureau’s existence. And you might notice that the democrats actually were able to work with the republicans, and that Pryor actually was confirmed! Oh, and by the way? There was a pretty mild increase from Clinton to Bush. There was a massive increase from Bush to Obama.
I never said they were “the same thing”. I said it was an “escalating war” that started with Bork. It wouldn’t really be an “escalating” war if we were doing the exact same thing in 2017 that was done 30 years ago, would it?
