Playing the long game: @HvonSpakovsky knows why Democrats turned Sessions’ hearing into a show trial. https://t.co/cJTXaMIqQd
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) January 16, 2017
Democrats and their progressive allies tried to turn the confirmation hearings of Sen. Jeff Sessions', R-Ala. (C, 78%) nomination to be the next attorney general of the United States into a show trial.
There was theatricality aplenty — bizarrely costumed Code Pinkers, marble-mouthed shouters, and lots and lots of feigned outrage (some of it coming from politicians who had previously heaped praise on the nominee).
But the performances are over. And Sessions will be confirmed despite all of the false and malicious claims made against him during the hearings and in the coordinated media attacks that sought to fan the flames.
Democratic senators knew going in that they did not have the votes to stop the nomination. So one has to ask: Why did they carry on for so many grueling hours? Why did they enable their political allies — including some dressed in Ku Klux Klan outfits — to disrupt the hearing process? Why did they pose so many insulting questions about his views and his record? Why did they bring in witnesses like David Cole, legal director of the ACLU, and Cornell Brooks, head of the NAACP, to make scurrilous and unfounded allegations against Sessions? ...
Why does the Left find Sessions so objectionable? Because he actually believes in the rule of law and abiding by the Constitution, and he would apply the laws to everyone equally — a notion that some on the Left reject when it comes to applying those laws to groups whom they favor. They would far prefer judges and attorneys to suspend equal application of the law in favor of applying the law on the basis of identity politics.
Despite Sessions’ almost certain confirmation, progressive politicians felt they had to provide political theater for their supporters and allies, because their supporters want them to oppose everything the Trump administration proposes and everyone the Trump administration wants to bring in. They complied with these wishes by arranging a mini-parade of “witnesses” to denounce Sessions as a racist hostile to women, minorities, gays, and immigrants (as Sen. Cory Booker did to his everlasting shame).
I believe there was a second motivation behind this grotesque display: The Left wanted to make Sessions’ hearing as unpleasant as possible, to send a message to the hundreds of other prospective appointees looking to staff the middle levels of the executive branch....
