Senatorial Speeches at Beginning of Supreme Court Nomination Hearings Should Be Sh*tcanned

   Senators Greasy Graham and Garulous Grassley. (photo: J. Scott Applewhite/Getty Images)

Charles Pierce / Esquire 21 March 22

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Submit the statements in writing and get on with it.

'If I were king of the forest, I would pass a rule for the Senate by which every opening statement by any senator in a confirmation hearing would be sent in writing to the committee chairman and entered into the record as written. That way, the first day of the hearings would consist of the nominee’s opening statement and then everybody could go home for the day. I came to this conclusion while watching the beginning session of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing into the nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. Herewith, my evaluation of the pros and cons of such a change.

Downside:

1. No chance of hearing Senator Sheldon Whitehouse explain to his Republican colleagues that, if they want to bring some bullshit about “outside groups” and “dark money” supporting the nominee, he has several barges worth of receipts concerning the Federalist Society and its wingnut front groups conveniently moored along the Potomac.


2. No chance to hear Senator Amy Klobuchar diss the Hapsburgs and silos, the latter a risky choice for a senator from Minnesota.


3. No chance to hear Chuck Grassley wrestle with some absurd metaphor about elephants in mouseholes.


4. No chance to see the nominee look at Tailgunner Ted Cruz in such a way as to become the living embodiment of the phrase, “Oh, please.”

Upside:

1. Not having to listen to endless whinging about what happened to poor Brett Kavanaugh, and poor Robert Bork, and poor Janice Rogers Brown.


2. Not having to listen to Young Ben Sasse give us a demonstration of When Middle School Civics Goes Horribly Wrong while throwing an elbow into the doctrine of unenumerated powers along the way.


3. Not having to listen to Huckleberry Graham’s patented syrupy passive-aggression. I swear you could grease up an 18-wheeler with a paragraph of his rhetoric.


4. Not having to listen to konztitooshunal skolar Mike Lee explain that, “The Constitution, written by wise men over 200 years ago. Wise men who I believe were raised up by almighty God for that very purpose.” And, in the Beyond, James Madison comes to the sad realization that his life’s work had no purpose.


5. Not having to watch Tailgunner Ted Cruz mistake a Senate hearing room for an afternoon session at CPAC, thereby prompting the aforementioned look from the nominee.


6. Not having to watch as the Reconstruction Amendments are simply read out of American constitutional history—“Cancelled,” if you will—in favor of a conservative concept of retroactive clairvoyance about what a bunch of 18th-century lawyers and slavers, and both, were thinking.

I’ll take the swap, actually. More to follow, I’m sure.

"And still," in the inimitable words of Moscow Mitch McConnell, "she persisted."