I had the misfortune of being in a car, with the radio tuned to NPR, when Lindsey Graham was interrogating Judge Jackson this morning. If you didn't hear it, consider yourself lucky.
The woman is a saint. The chair of the committee (Dick Durbin of Illinois) showed that he is spineless, because Graham was past his allotted time for the entire segment I heard, which was more than 15 minutes long. And he was berating her and not letting her answer, even when he was actually asking a question instead of pontificating.
I've since heard some say that Durbin's "strategy" is to make the Republican look like fools by giving them enough rope, yada yada. And while they do look like fools, I think by now we've learned that this does not work. It only feeds their base. They've got enough rope to hang us all.
Now multiple media outlets have already run headlines about the "heated exchange" between Graham and Jackson, when there was no such thing. There was Graham having a rule-breaking tantrum, with Jackson patiently listening to him, then occasionally trying to answer while he interrupted. She was never heated in any way.
So did that work, Senator Durbin?
Remember, Lindsey Graham voted to confirm Jackson to the Court of Appeals less than a year ago. The same cases he was questioning about all happened before that that confirmation vote.
4 comments:
I don’t want to defend Durbin here, but there is another way to look at it: he’s on record as saying that he’d like this to be a bipartisan choice — which I think means at least one or two Republican votes. Perhaps he went out his way to indulge Graham so as not to alienate a potential Republican yes. Whether that’s worth doing is another question.
At any rate, Sasse’s term “jackassery” certainly describes Republican performances yesterday and today. Yesterday I watched in real time; today I couldn’t bring myself to do so.
It seems as though holding members to their time limits is not asking too much.
No, it’s not. He was an enabler today.
It sounds like Graham's abuse (of the rules, as well as the nominee) was repeated by others later in the day. When is it over? Please, let it be over. It's excruciating.
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