Sen. Bob Corker Provides Some Rare Sanity Out of Kavanaugh Fiasco

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn., takes questions during a TV news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, April 19, 2018. CIA Director Mike Pompeo's nomination for secretary of state has so divided the Foreign Relations Committee that it might send his nomination to the full Senate without a favorable recommendation. He was also asked about a re-election bid by President Donald Trump in 2020. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

After weeks of insanity revolving around a SCOTUS nominee some sound reasoning is welcome.

 

For the past few weeks accusations have been hurled about as freely as basketballs at a Pop-A-Shot inside of a Dave & Busters. Not only has Justice Kavanaugh been branded a sexual predator but conservatives in general have been charged as anti-women. More than a handful of times my asking for evidence to support charges had me being accused as a rape apologist.

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The imbalanced shrieking has been constant, and that is why when a sober voice emerges amidst all the hectoring it is worth getting notice. Senator Robert Corker, a departing Republican from Tennessee, addressed reporters following review of the latest FBI report surrounding the nomination. He provided words that should be digested by many, but are likely to be over-shouted.

I know a lot about sexual assault,” Corker told some media in attendance. “The thought that we don’t care about that is ridiculous. It is very ridiculous, but the political climate under which we now exist means a huge segment of this country is willing to believe the opposite. It also likely means his words could go unheeded.

In a tweet he sent out Friday morning Corker delivered a warm dose of common sense, along with a gentle rebuke, that is refreshing in this political tar-and-feather foodfight dervish we have been mired in for months.

Transferring the countless injustices that have happened to women for decades onto a person who had nothing to do with them is an injustice, just as seeking to elevate one’s own political stature by wrongly destroying someone else’s reputation is an injustice

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He accurately addresses something we have been witnessing. The desire to railroad Brett Kavanaugh has many earmarks of a catharsis from a movement. The attempt to symbolically offset past oppression onto a lone individual in a move towards unearned justice is in fact an injustice. The #MeToo proponents however see this as a wholly legitimate reaction.

I wrote earlier about some of this, how many have weaponized their movement, and are now trying to leverage their newfound power. One aspect is amid the protests we have seen. Anytime members of Congress respond to those who have approached them sternly in the halls and elevators we have heard reactions akin to, “He said that to Survivors!”

This is held up as some form of raised effrontery; how a Senator is expected to know who among the crowd of strangers were former victims is never explained. Their oppressive responding is accused as all the worse because of the presence of these unknown survivors. And this irrationality cuts to Corker’s words.

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By dragging in the crimes and injustices of past events, that have no bearing on the issues and record of a judge’s career on the bench, we are crossing a line of social comportment. The dangerous irony in all of this is that in confirming a Supreme Court Justice we are risking making injustice a common tool in that vetting process.

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