The hypocrisy and grandstanding at the recent confirmation hearing for the potential Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, was truly amazing. Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz led the charge bashing Judge Jackson on everything from her decisions as a trial lawyer and judge, her definition of a woman, and her school board seat at her children’s school.
It would seem to me that one of the most important qualifications for a Supreme Court justice should be ‘on hand’ experience with the law. Judge Jackson’s qualifications include serving as a supreme court clerk, a public defender trial lawyer, and presently a federal judge; items sorely missing from the most recent person appointed to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett. Hypocritically, both Senator Cruz and Senator Graham found no problem with her law inexperience and quickly approved her nomination with no objections. They must both feel proud that they nominated Justice Barrett, who has the distinction of being the least experienced Supreme Court nominee in 30 years. She had spent almost all her professional life in academia until Trump nominated her to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. She had never worked as a prosecutor, defense lawyer, solicitor general, attorney general, or even served as counsel to any legislative body. By almost any objective measure, Judge Barrett is the most inexperienced person nominated to the Supreme Court since 1991, when President George H.W. Bush nominated Clarence Thomas.
Jackson, on the other hand, served in several of these positions which to her misfortune, served as ‘raw meat’ for the predatory appetites of Cruz, Graham and other Republican committee members to bash her on her clients she was assigned to defend as a public defender, and the sentences she handed down as a judge. They may not have liked her decisions, or felt they weren’t severe enough, but at least she practiced law in a court room setting. And, contrary to what Cruz, Graham and some other Republicans would have you believe, according to national court sentencing averages, Ms. Jackson’s sentencings were not ‘out of line’ with those averages.
Next up for display was Senator Ted Cruz’s taking up the charge for Republicans against anti-racism efforts at a private school in Washington where Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson serves as a school board member. He produced a book available for reading in the district and listed the school’s policy regarding race relations as both problematic. However, what Senator Cruz failed to note was leaders at the private school in Houston where he sends his two daughters have articulated a similar race commitment, and the exact same book is available for reading. Apparently, he has no problem with his own daughters’ immersion in that school’s philosophies, only when it somewhat remotely applies to Ms. Jackson as being one of several school board members.
Space does not permit the other hypocrisies which arose in the selection committee meeting. However, I would like to address one other Republican hypocrisy. President Biden had been accused of engaging in ‘selective bias’ by several Republicans because he pledged up front that he would choose a Black female for the next Supreme Court justice. They clamored that that would systematically eliminate all the qualified males and white females from the selection process. Need I remind these folks that former President Trump pledged up front that he would nominate a female for his Supreme Court person? No Cruz, Graham, and other Republican complaints regarding that ‘selective bias’ edict.
Hypocrisy: the false profession of desirable or publicly approved qualities, beliefs, or feelings, esp. a pretense of having virtues, moral principles, or religious beliefs that one does not really possess. (The Online Free Dictionary) Or as I like to define it in the present day, ‘POLITICS.’
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