A Black woman — any Black woman — nominated to fill Stephen Breyer’s seat on the U.S. Supreme Court will be “someone who is the beneficiary” of an affirmative action “quota,” according to Mississippi Republican Roger Wicker.
Sen. Wicker, who is the beneficiary of the father who preceded him as a lawyer and politician in their home state, seems to think that no Black female nominee could possibly have the qualifications that beneficiaries of earlier quotas — “100% for us sound about right, Binky?” “Roger that, Roger” — were just assumed to have inherited, along with Dad’s club membership.
Is he really saying that if you’ve made it to the shortlist as a Black woman, that could only be because some historically disadvantaged white gentlemen were somehow shoved aside? Pshhht.
Naturally, Missouri's own Josh Hawley couldn’t resist biting off a piece of this outrage, pretending that Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign promise to put the first Black woman on the court was in no way akin to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign promise to put the first woman there.
Our junior senator vented to Sean Hannity, “I believe it to be typical of this administration, which has been the most race-obsessed, gender-obsessed in terms of trying to deconstruct genders, actually. I mean, this is a hard woke left administration. And so, I wasn’t surprised at all when the president said that this is what he’s going to do.’’
Putting a Black woman on the Supreme Court is no more “hard woke left” — whatever that is — than putting another white guy on the court would be “soft sleepy right.” Can’t you wait to see who he nominates before starting in? No, of course.
With a 6-3 conservative majority on the court already, Republicans don’t even have to fight this nomination by Woke Sleepy Joe, or whatever it is they’re calling him now.
But then, Josh Hawley, who is making a career of white grievance, will deplore, decry, and also say many bad things about anybody Biden chooses, just to keep his skills up.
If Biden picks anyone to the left of that lawyer for the Proud Boys — you know, the boys Trump has suggested he’ll pardon if we give him the chance — this will in Hawley’s world make him some kind of Bolshevik. The president could let the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo make his fourth court pick and Hawley would still complain.
Remember how Hawley spent his time at the microphone during Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination hearing? Waving a stack of newspapers — OK, that’s a touch we’d like to see more of — he pretended, Joe McCarthy style, that these were filled with “one attack after another, in the liberal media, one hit piece after another” targeting Coney Barrett’s Catholicism. He read no snippy snippets from these pieces, because there weren’t any to read.
Then he said “it’s not just in the newspapers” that religious bigots were after Coney Barrett. “It’s members of this committee.” That wasn’t happening, either; the only members who mentioned her religion at all were Hawley's fellow Republicans.
“Our process is going to be rigorous,” Biden has said, promising to “select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer’s legacy of excellence and decency. While I’ve been studying candidates’ backgrounds and writings, I’ve made no decision except one: The person I nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity — and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It’s long overdue.”
That Hawley, Wicker and others don’t seem to think such a person exists just shows how seriously their objections should be taken.
