Senators Hard On Kiddy Porn
Listen, child pornography is bad. It’s hard to imagine there’s a “political issue” about children used in pornography. There is no “affirmative” side. But then there’s Josh Hawley, Senator from Missouri with Stanford undergraduate and Yale Law degrees. He seems to think that he’s on “one side”, and Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson (Harvard undergraduate and Law) is on the other.
This isn’t an issue. Judge Jackson is as opposed to child pornography as Hawley. But the Senator thinks he can “catch” the Judge as “soft on kiddy porn”. His case in point, an eighteen year old high school kid who collected enormous amounts of child pornography on his computer. Judge Jackson sentenced him to three months in Federal Prison (as an eighteen year old), then decades of community controls and sanctions. But Senator Hawley thinks she went too easy on him, and is trying to score political points.
Hawley isn’t the only one stuck on child pornography. Senators Cotton and Cruz are also “concerned” about where the future Justice stands. And while her record shows, that she is as abhorrent of children being used for pornography as anyone, it’s not going to be enough.
Why?
Paybacks and the Presidency
Because it’s the only “wedge” these Republicans can find to try to attack her nomination. And attack they must. They have to prove to the future Republican voters of the 2024 Presidential election that they are on the “right” (get it?) side. And they, along with their comrades-in-hurt Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley, want “payback”. Payback for Democrats fighting tooth-and-nail against Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, the last two Trump appointees.
Child pornography is a legal issue, and Judge Jackson’s long record is “fair game”, I guess. But Lindsey Graham demanding that Judge Jackson rate her Christianity on a “scale of 1 to 10”. That would get any “normal” job interview thrown right to the Human Relations department. Graham doesn’t really care about Jackson’s faith. He is getting his “payback” for the Amy Coney Barrett hearings. That’s when questions arose about her adherence to a particularly extreme Christian religious sect – far different than Jackson’s “mainstream” Christianity. But Graham too must score his “points”.
The Winner
So who was the winner of the Jackson’s first day (and night) of nomination hearings? Judge Jackson, the legal scholar who will become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. She parried with the Senators, carefully keeping her cool even when questioned about whether a school where she serves on the board teaches that babies are born “biased”. Senator Cruz made sure that the other Republican “wedge” – the erroneously named “Critical Race Theory” issue – was placed in front of the first Black woman to be nominated for the Court.
Ketanji Brown Jackson echoes Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play in major league baseball. When the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Robinson “up” to the team, it wasn’t just because of his skills on the ballfield. Robinson, a UCLA grad (with varsity letters in four sports) and 2nd Lieutenant in the World War II US Army, was able to keep his cool in spite of the ongoing racial slurs and discrimination from the other teams and the grandstand. In the same way, the underlying racism of some of the Republican questioners hasn’t cracked Judge Jackson’s demeanor, even after almost twelve hours of questioning. Both showed grace under pressure.
A Reason to Celebrate
Barring some incredibly damaging revelation, or, Joe Manchin losing his mind, Ketanji Brown Jackson will become the first Black woman on the US Supreme Court. Her arrival won’t change the balance of the Court. The six conservative Justices are in full control of the Court’s decision making. But she will bring a unique perspective to the conference, as a woman, a Black person, but most importantly as a brilliant legal scholar. She is one of the best, bar none, in the nation.
Republican and Democratic Senators can argue who “politicized” the nomination process. Republicans go back as far as the failed Robert Bork nomination in the 1980’s, Democrats look at McConnell’s manipulation of the process in the last years of both President Obama’s and Trump’s administration. There is no question that there’s enough blame to spread around.
But it’s unfortunate that we cannot celebrate how far the United States has come. Judge Jackson, is one of the top jurists in the nation, regardless of race or gender. The United States will be better for her being on the Bench. And she is proving her judicial “temperament” every additional hour she sits at the witness table.
