Either the Washington Post caught amnesia sometime after 2018, or it’s being run by liars. I’ll let you decide.
In an editorial published Thursday, the Post claimed that Senate Republicans have treated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson worse over the past few days than Senate Democrats treated Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. As evidence, the Post cited Republicans’ questions on Jackson’s sentencing record, specifically sentences she passed down in a number of child pornography cases, as well as a few other questions regarding cultural issues such as critical race theory and gender ideology.
From the article:
Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) used much of her time assailing those concerned about transgender people. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) attacked Judge Jackson for sitting on the board of Georgetown Day School, a D.C. private school, because he disapproves of its anti-racism curriculum, which Judge Jackson has never endorsed, let alone relied upon in a ruling.
If the Post disagreed with Senate Republicans’ line of questioning, that’s all it needed to say. Instead, it chose to liken Jackson’s hearings to the most egregious example of political misconduct that many of us have ever witnessed and pretend that the two events are not only comparable but that such a comparison makes Democrats look good.
Here’s a brief reminder of what Democrats did to Kavanaugh. They hit him with an allegation of sexual assault that could not be corroborated right before his hearings and insisted without evidence that it was credible and he was guilty. They not only leaked this allegation against his accuser’s wishes but pressured her to come and testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee — though she could not recall precisely when or where the alleged attack occurred or whom she had talked to about it. Even after the three friends Christine Blasey Ford named as witnesses, one of whom was a “lifelong friend” of Ford’s, declined to corroborate her story, Democrats insisted that Kavanaugh was a rapist.
But that was just the start. After it became clear Ford’s uncorroborated allegations weren’t going to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination, Democrats elevated two more accusers: Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick. The latter’s accusations were offensively absurd, made even more so by the fact she had a lengthy, documented history of dishonesty and was represented by a man who is now on his way to prison for fraud. Swetnick claimed Kavanaugh and his friends regularly spiked girls’ drinks in the early 1980s so they could “gangbang” them and that she once became a victim herself. She later admitted that she couldn’t “specifically say that [Kavanaugh] was one of the ones who assaulted me.”
But none of this mattered to Senate Democrats, who continued to cite Swetnick, Ramirez, and Ford throughout Kavanaugh’s hearings and accuse him of committing gross and egregious crimes for which there was absolutely no solid evidence. They publicly went through his high school yearbook and used it to dismiss him as a drunk. They encouraged leftist activists to crowd the U.S. Capitol building and harass Republican senators who still supported him.
Their goal was simple: They wanted to smear Kavanaugh irreconcilably, and they were willing to destroy his personal life and his career to do it.
The Post sees nothing wrong with this behavior. In fact, it thinks it was defensible:
I’m not sure what reality the Post is living in, but it’s not this one. A credible allegation is one that can be verified. Neither Ford’s, nor Ramirez’s, nor Swetnick’s has been verified — even after multiple investigations, including one by the FBI. It does not matter whether the Post thinks these allegations sounded credible; what matters is that the law did not even come close to that conclusion.
But putting aside the Post’s attempt to rewrite history, let’s return to its claim that asking Jackson tough questions about her record as a trial judge is somehow worse than unjustifiably accusing a man of gangbanging a young woman. Come on. Are we serious?
First off, the questions Republicans are asking are about things Jackson has actually said and done. The sentences she passed down are in the public record, as is the Harvard Law Review article she wrote questioning public registries for sex offenders. The speech she gave in which she praised a pioneer of critical race theory is public knowledge. None of these things had to be verified or investigated. A witness didn’t need to be burned so that Republicans could make their point. Jackson’s record was in plain view for everyone to see and to question.
Moreover, asking Jackson to explain the reasoning behind her sentences and statements is in no way comparable to Democrats pulling out Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook and arguing that his reference to a sports game meant he was a heavy drinker. Expecting Jackson to answer cultural questions that could reveal a bit about her judicial philosophy is in no way comparable to Democrats forcing a woman into the spotlight so they could use her to attack a man’s character. Republicans asked questions relevant to the law and Jackson’s work as a judge; Democrats leveled personal attacks that had the ability to destroy a man’s life.
The fact is that there is only one political party that proudly plays the judicial nomination process like it’s a blood sport. Over and over again, Democrats have proved that nothing is off-limits. They smeared Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s faith, accused Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment, made Justice Samuel Alito’s wife cry by strongly implying he is a racist, and dismissed Judge Robert Bork as a rabid segregationist. For years, on these and numerous lower court nominations, Democrats have been playing by a different set of rules, and everyone, including the Post, knows it.
The difference is that the Post just doesn’t care.
