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Spartacus is back, grab a bucket: SCOTUS nom and Booker cry as he makes drama over race and gender

March 24, 2022 | | Print Article

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New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker’s alter ego, “Spartacus,” made an almost “Oscar-worthy” (save for the “overacting,” according to critics) return to the stage during Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings this week.

In hibernation since Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious confirmation hearings four years ago, “Spartacus” reappeared Wednesday to fawn over Jackson and shed tears over her treatment at the hands of his Republican colleagues.

Booker’s colleagues have been asking the Supreme Court nominee tough questions pertaining to confirmed reports about her past work as vice-chair of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. They specifically have zeroed in on her confirmed habit of doling out light sentences to pedophiles.

To be clear, Booker and his Democrat colleagues asked tough questions of Kavanaugh as well during his confirmation hearings in 2018. However, those tough questions pertained to unconfirmed — and since debunked — accusations and smears that he was some sort of rapist.

Yet, according to the New Jersey senator, his Republican colleagues’ line of questioning was what’s “shocking” and unacceptable.

“You faced insults here that were shocking to me. … It’s not going to stop. They’re going to accuse you of this and that. Heck, in honor of a person who shares your birthday, you might be called a communist,” he said to Jackson during Wednesday’s hearing.

“But don’t worry, my sister, don’t worry. God has got you. And how do I know that? Because you’re here. And I know what it’s taken for you to sit in that seat.”

Booker then proceeded to compare her “shocking” treatment at the hands of Republicans to the treatment legendary escaped slave Harriet Tubman had endured.

“Harriet Tubman is one of my heroes. … She was viciously beaten. Her whole life she used to fall into spells, cracked skull. She faced starvation, chased by dogs. And when she got to freedom, what did she do? Did she rest? No. She went back again and again and again,” he said with emotion.

“The sky was full of stars, but she found one that was a harbinger of hope for better days, not just for her and those people that were enslaved, but a harbinger of hope for this country. And she never gave up on America. She fought, led troops in the Civil War. She was involved in the suffrage movement.”

It’s not clear how any of this had anything to do with Jackson’s confirmation hearing, save for the fact that, like Tubman, she too is black.

“I thought about her and how she looked up. She kept looking up no matter what they did to her. She never stopped looking up. And that star, it was a harbinger of hope. Today, you’re my star. You are my harbinger of hope,” Booker continued.

“This country is getting better and better and better. And when that final vote happens and you ascend onto the highest court in the land, I’m gonna rejoice, and I’m going to tell you right now, the greatest country in the world, the United States of America will be better because of you,” he declared.

Note how his spiel offered nothing substantive and instead relied entirely on emotions. If confirmed, Jackson would be America’s first black female Supreme Court justice. And indeed, this appears to be her only relevant “qualification” to Democrats, as Booker made clear earlier in his diatribe.

“You’re a person that is so much more than your race and gender. You’re a Christian, you’re a mom, you’re an intellect, you love books. But for me, I’m sorry, it’s hard for me not to look at you and not see my mom, not to see my cousins. … I see my ancestors, and yours,” he said.

“Nobody’s gonna steal that joy. You have earned this spot. You are worthy. You are a great American. … There is a love in this country that is extraordinary. You admitted it about your parents. They loved this nation, even though there were laws preventing them from getting together. … It wasn’t that long ago. But they didn’t stop loving this country, even though this country didn’t love them back,” Booker went on.

Listen, and take note of Jackson wiping her teary eyes with tissue:

Conservatives who witnessed “Spartacus'” attacks on Kavanaugh four years ago were wholly unimpressed by his latest stunt and his “race-baiting” rhetoric. Likewise, conservatives were annoyed at how quickly Democrats have forgotten history.

Seventeen years ago, then-Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement. But before then-President George W. Bush could nominate Judge Janice Rogers Brown, a black woman on his shortlist, to O’Connor’s seat, then-Sen. Joseph Biden threatened to filibuster her nomination.

And about a decade before that, Democrats, including Biden, all pounced on and smeared then-Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, a black man.

Vivek Saxena
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