More on 2022: A Bipartisan Space Fantasy

Reading Erik’s post below about how Joe Biden and the rest of the Democratic leadership pretty much continue to act as if it’s business as usual with the Republican party, even at the exact moment that a Congressional hearing is confirming in technicolor and Doubley that the whole GOP is about 17 seconds away from going full fash, I remembered something from a galaxy far away and long ago, aka the Ketanji Brown Jackson SCOTUS nomination.

Let’s review here.

(1) KBJ was superbly qualified for the post by all conventional metrics. (I’m not saying these are the greatest possible metrics, but they are the ones that remain in full force and effect).

(2) There wasn’t the slightest hint of any personal scandal or other non-standard qualifications basis for opposing her nomination.

(3) This is the big one: THERE WAS ZERO CHANCE OF STOPPING HER FROM BEING CONFIRMED. This was evident from the beginning, and was totally undeniable by the end of the Judiciary Committee hearings at the latest.

In other words, voting to confirm a superbly qualified candidate untainted by scandal to the SCOTUS — something that not long ago would have generated very close to a unanimous vote; for example RBG was confirmed by a vote of 96-3 — is something that 47 out of 50 GOP senators were unwilling to do!

Again, this was a complete freebie — as close to as perfect an opportunity to cast a pragmatically meaningless vote that would signal warm and fuzzy bipartisanship and give Tom Friedman a chub as you can possibly imagine. Plus it would prove definitively and for all time that the GOP wasn’t racist and sexist like that crazy radical bitch from a foreign country AOC is always claiming.

And almost none of them would do it! (The three exceptions were Romney, Murkowski, and Collins).

I hope it was a nice picnic.