The Democrats should be ashamed of this.
Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Senator Tom Cotton, (R-Ark.) told host Dana Perino that Republicans wouldn’t be launching “grotesque smear campaigns” against President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee like Democrats did when “fine” justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh were nominated.
During the interview, Cotton emphasized Biden’s selection, who the President pledged would be a Black woman, would be examined based solely on her qualifications.
Cotton mentioned that Republicans would “keep an open mind” and “review the nominee on her merits.” But he expressed doubt at the caliber of Biden’s nominee, saying, “I can’t say that I’ve got wild expectations that Joe Biden is going to nominate someone who I think I can support or many Republicans can support because I’ve seen dozens of his nominees to the lower courts.”
He added that almost all of these nominations had “been left-wing ideologues who think judges should make the law, rather than apply and uphold the Constitution and the laws as they are passed.”
However, he made one promise, saying there is one thing he or any Republican would not do, and that was to “engage in the kind of grotesque smear campaigns against the character of fine men like Clarence Thomas, stories we saw. Like what happened with Brett Kavanaugh two years ago.”
Instead, he said the GOP will “give a thorough vetting into any nominee’s legal philosophies, as well as their career, and their character and their temperament.”
He continued saying, Republicans will not do “what Democrats do, which is simply make up smears against a nominee,” adding that he hopes that never happens again.
The comments made by Cotton came after watching a clip of Vice President Kamala Harris –– who was only a Senator from California at the time –– grilling Kavanaugh in his 2018 confirmation hearings.
Later Harris would join protestors outside the Supreme Court protesting Kavanaugh’s appointment. Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) were among the protestors.
Kavanaugh –– who was facing an allegation of sexual assault he vehemently denied –– was confirmed to the court following the controversial hearings.
Although Biden plans to make good on his promise to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court, criticism from Clarence Thomas, a justice who condemned the President for his conduct as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman during Thomas’ 1991 confirmation process, still lingers.
Thomas revealed in a recent interview for the “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words” documentary that despite beliefs that people who would be “problematic” toward him as a Black man would be bigots in pickup trucks or “the Klansman, the rural sheriff” the biggest “impediment” he faced “was the modern-day liberal.”
