The Obstruction Of Lynch's Nomination Continues And Has Nothing To Do With Race
In which we learn that Republican intransigence is a Democratic problem.
By Charles P. Pierce
Bill Clark/CQ Roll CallGetty Images
Try to follow this. The Republican majority in the United States Senate decides to be clever again. (I know, I know. But play along anyway.) They propose an anti-human-trafficking bill, but they lard it up with some extreme anti-choice language in the hopes that the Democrats will oppose the latter and thereby be positioned as people who support the former. The Democrats -- who, whatever else you may think of them, did not arrive for work this morning on a turnip truck -- filibuster the bill. Now, here is where it gets complicated. In response, the Republicans delay confirmation of Loretta Lynch as Attorney General until the Democrats pass said bill, and until Lynch says something they like regarding the president's unilateral action on immigration. This is not really the way the system is supposed to work.
And you will be shocked to know that two of the leading lights of the Washington Post opinion elite have discovered who else is to blame for this mess.
Dick Durbin.
First up is Ruth Marcus, scourge of teenage potty-mouths everywhere.Ruth is very upset with the Republicans, but she also is objective enough to realize that they are operating with severely wounded fee-fees.
To wit, Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin, who complained that "the first African-American woman nominated to be attorney general is asked to sit in the back of the bus when it comes to the Senate calendar" — this after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held her nomination hostage to action on a stalled human trafficking bill. Oh, please. I'm not in the habit of agreeing with Rich Lowry of National Review, but opposing Lynch is no more race-based than Durbin's own opposition to the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state.
Pro Tip: when discussing the fraught issue of race in America, it is advisable not to attach yourself to the views of the editor of a long-time journal of white supremacy. I'm sure the folks at VDare have some interesting views on this situation as well.
That's not to say that lawmakers are bias-free. This is impossible to prove, but to watch Attorney General Eric Holder testify before Congress makes me think that, at times, he is treated with less respect than if he were white. But relations between Holder and congressional Republicans are badly frayed; it is in those fraught moments of tension that prejudices, perhaps subconscious, emerge. There was no such atmosphere during the Lynch hearings.
The hell you say. (Anything that makes Ruth think is to be applauded.) Subconscious prejudices? Unpossible!
And then there's Kathleen Parker, who won a Pulitzer Prize by discovering the existence of the Pacific Ocea...er...that Sarah Palin is a dolt. She's not having this nonsense, either.
He left out the part about Democratic intransigence and at least one incident of "wacko-birdness" from the left. When John McCain originally used "wacko-birds" to describe a few of his Senate colleagues, including now-presidential candidate Ted Cruz, he seems to have released a contagion. The U.S. Senate, once the perch of eagles, has begun to resemble an aviary of grackles. Much a-cawing about little. Lynch's qualifications aren't really in question. Most agree that she's more than up to the job, yet her confirmation has been stalled by Republicans who want something in exchange for their blessings. Within this construct are at least four moving parts that have little or nothing to do with Lynch's confirmation — sex trafficking, abortion, race and immigration...Clamoring to this low branch is grackle du jour Sen. Dick Durbin, whose hyperbole is exceeded only by his wearying lack of originality. Republicans, he cawed, are forcing Lynch to "sit in the back of the bus." The "bus"? Really? The back burner, perhaps, but the Lynch debate hardly centers on race relations in America. Now if we were talking about coffee . . .Durbin has earned ample criticism for his remark, but the double standard deserves a fresh airing. To wit, or tu-whoo, if I am to sustain this now-burdensome bird metaphor, Durbin's vote against Condoleezza Rice for secretary of state 10 years ago. Was he being racist?
OK, stop channeling Sparkle Pants, the lot of you. It's really bad form. Condoleezza Rice got confirmed by the Senate after the country suffered the worst national-security disaster in its history on her watch as National Security Advisor. Durbin simply voted against her confirmation. The point is, however, that even with this horrible failure in her previous job, Rice got a vote. The Democrats did not hold her nomination hostage until they got a vote they wanted on environmental regulation or something else. She got a vote and then she got the job.
Would Lynch's nomination be put up for a vote if Durbin never had been born? Of course not. And you have to be blind, deaf, or a National Review staffer to argue that race has not been part of the resistance to both this president and to Attorney General Eric Holder. (Subconscious prejudices!) As even Marcus and Parker are forced to admit, the obstruction of Lynch's nomination already is of unprecedented length. Lynch is the first African American woman to be nominated for this position and, I'm sorry, but the Republican party lost any benefit of the doubt on racial issues when it committed itself decades ago to becoming the lifeboat for the adherents of American apartheid. It took 40 years for the Republicans to stop harping on the Democrats for nominating the decent and honorable George McGovern for president. The Republicans can live with the legacy of Lee Atwater for a little longer.
Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.
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