GOP senators' 'clownish' Jackson hearing performances blasted in scathing WaPo editorial

The Republican senators who attempted to smear Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson during her confirmation hearing this week are being denounced by The Washington Post editorial board for their "clownish" behavior.

In a scathing editorial, the newspaper writes: "During the hearings, Republicans such as Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) have congratulated themselves for declining to treat Judge Jackson the way Democrats handled the nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh. In fact, by the most relevant measures, Mr. Graham and a handful of other Judiciary Committee Republicans have handled themselves worse."

Graham's attempt to paint the judge as friendly to child pornographers obviously was hollow, the editorial points out, as demonstrated by sentences Jackson meted out in cases that have come before her. The paper also singled out Graham's attack on Jackson's work defending detainees at Guantánamo Bay - after saying he wouldn't do exactly that.

Other Republicans were singled out in the editorial for their obvious posturing.

"Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) used much of her time assailing those concerned about transgender people. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) attacked Judge Jackson for sitting on the board of Georgetown Day School, a D.C. private school, because he disapproves of its anti-racism curriculum, which Judge Jackson has never endorsed, let alone relied upon in a ruling. Similarly, several Republicans complained that outside pressure groups favored her nomination, even though she has no connection to them. These attacks by association underscored that they had little substance on which to criticize her."

WaPo noted that some GOP senators, notably Iowa's Chuck Grassley and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, had substantive discussions with Jackson, but says, "their colleagues’ antics distracted from their more productive questioning, and from what should have been the order of the day: recognizing the historic nomination of the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court and using the opportunity to probe thorny legal questions in good faith.

"Neither side is blameless in the politicization of the confirmation process. But, particularly after they iced out then-Judge Merrick Garland in 2016, Republicans have done the most damage. The clownish performances by Mr. Graham and others continue them on that trajectory."