We've long heard about the collegial nature of the Senate. If you're a senator, you treat your colleagues with respect and decorum unless your name is Harry Reid, and you give particular deference to colleagues who are nominated for cabinet positions. That doesn't mean you automatically vote to confirm them, but you certain afford them a great deal of respect.
I'm not necessarily telling you, pro or con, it's good that the Senate is this way. At times this frustrates me. At times I think it hamstrings Republican senators from advocating more strongly for good policy. But this is the way it is, and as such, it would be an extraordinary thing for one senator to actually testify against another in a confirmation hearing.
That's why it was big news yesterday that Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, did that very thing against his colleague Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Alabama, in his confirmations hearings for attorney general. Booker found it necessary to take this highly extraordinary step, we're told, because of his deep, deep concerns about the state of civil rights under a prospective Sessions Justice Department, given all the scuttlebutt that Sessions is a secret racist.
Tough to do, but hey, Booker is so concerned. He just had no choice.
Bulls***.
Cory Booker knows that Jeff Sessions is not a racist. Cory Booker knows that Jeff Sessions celebrates and supports the heroes of the civil rights movement. Cory Booker knows that Jeff Sessions supports the civil and legal rights of minorities to this very day. How do we know this? Because Booker said so himself, just last year:
This is garbage and Booker knows it
This event announced the passage of a resolution to honor the "foot soldiers" of the civil rights victories that occurred in 1965. Booker and Sessions worked together on the resolution. Booker said he was "honored" to partner with Sessions on the resolution, because he knew that both men were deeply appreciative and respectful of the civil rights activists who won such worthy and important victories in that era.
So how do we get from that to this?
So Jeff Sessions, who just last year was such a champion of civil rights that Booker was "honored to partner" with him on a civil rights measure, now represents a danger to the nation because he disagrees with Booker on matters like the Voting Rights Act and criminal justice?
This is garbage and Booker knows it. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, knows exactly what's going on here:
I’m very disappointed that Senator Booker has chosen to start his 2020 presidential campaign by testifying against Senator Sessions. This disgraceful breach of custom is especially surprising since Senator Booker just last year said he was “honored to have partnered with Senator Sessions” on a resolution honoring civil-rights marchers. Senator Booker says he feels compelled to speak out because Senator Session wants to keep criminals behind bars, drugs off our streets, and amnesty from becoming law. He’s welcome to oppose these common-sense policies and vote against Senator Sessions’s nomination, but what is so unique about those views to require his extraordinary testimony? Nothing. This hearing simply offers a platform for his presidential aspirations. Senator Booker is better than that, and he knows better.
Except that I'm not sure Booker is better than this. Booker is a notorious showboat and its widely believed that he is one of the Democrats' leading choices to take on Trump in 2016. Would a guy like this be so brazen as to embrace Sessions as a partner in celebrating civil rights, only to imply months later that he's a racist because it's in the interest of his electoral ambitions to do so?
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This is all Bolshevik, and Cory Booker is a total fraud
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I suppose one could argue that the collegiality of the Senate is actually Booker's explanation for the seeming discrepancy here. He was merely being collegial last year, the argument will go, but now civil rights progress is on the line and he can no longer feign politeness given the stakes.
A legitimate argument? Well, to believe that argument, you'd have to believe that Booker knowingly joined with a blatant racist on a resolution honoring civil rights marchers, and publicly proclaimed his pride in doing so, knowing full well that it would give said racist cover for his prejudices. Why would Booker do that if he really believed these horrible things about Sessions to be true? You can mouth the language that all the senators are your friends, because that's just how you talk when you're a senator. You aren't required to work with a dirty racist on your own civil rights resolution. You don't get smacked down for violating decorum if you refuse to do that.
No, Booker didn't consider Sessions a racist in 2016, but cover up his concerns for the sake of decorum. What's more, Booker's violation of Senate decorum now, in testifying against Sessions, is very much intentional and for effect. He's doing this to send a message that Sessions is so horrible that Booker is forced by his conscience to step outside the norms of Senate tradition and take this extraordinary step for the good of the republic.
This is all Bolshevik, and Cory Booker is a total fraud. He is slandering the same good man he was "honored to partner with" mere months ago, because he perceives his own interests to have changed, and the Sessions-as-racist narrative now demands his attention. If Booker does indeed run for president in 2020, this should not be forgotten.
