One day this week, I heard of some political issues being spoken about, and I decided to check Twitter to see what was going on politically. Then, I stumbled on a Twitter ‘moment’ (https://twitter.com/i/moments/829166461503553536) that shared information about Sen. Warren being silenced by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and an old letter written by Coretta Scott King. While she [Warren] was reading a 30 year old letter apparently written by Mrs. King, she was “silenced,” which is apparently something that can take place under a rule called the Senate Rule XIX.
Those things are not what interests me most, however. What gets me wanting to write is the problem (for the Democrats or liberals) that is found with having Senator Sessions as Attorney General. I keep hearing that the man is a racist, but then I look up an article by the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/10/read-the-letter-coretta-scott-king-wrote-opposing-sessionss-1986-federal-nomination/?utm_term=.cb5fd050e7be#comments) and watch the video and it seems to me that people just have him wrong.
The thing that I am constantly asking myself when it came to Trump’s past “issues” with African Americans or Sessions prosecuting civil rights leaders for a voting-fraud case is this: does something happening years ego equate to a person still being a racist (if it could actually be proven that they had been one originally)? Even in Mrs. King’s letter, it appears that she is pointing to the prosecution of the former civil rights leaders as “politically-motivated” and showing he “lacks the temperament, fairness and judgment to be a federal judge” (or to have been a federal judge). But that is one major issue, and if he allowed other persons who were Caucasian to not be persecuted who had been committing voting fraud (obviously looking past their wrongs because of their race), then that would be wrong. Still though, they would be two issues and still more than thirty years ago.
Why would anyone, let alone Sen. Warren, believe that this letter should be read now? Let’s say that it was true that he has made bad decisions in the past, then should that mean he should not be allowed to move on from that today. I think another question should be: what has Sessions done in the past year or decade (or however long that he’s been a Senator) that would cause one to feel that he would not be able to reasonably perform his duties? Is he known for continuously making bad decisions on race or sex or something else politically that would cause folks to wonder if he should be confirmed as Attorney General?
Now, I am not saying that this one point is the only issue that liberals and Democrats have with Sessions. I have not checked but I would not be surprised if they had other arguments. However, I am taking issue with this particular point because it would seem that if you are going to allege that a man is a racist, you would come with more solid evidence than a thirty year old letter written by a former (now, dead) civil rights activist. I believe Sen. Warren could have done better on this point.
Then again, this is politics we are talking about here, and you know that there are no real rules to politics………..as long as you can get away with it.
Check out Thinking It Through with Jerome Danner for Jerome’s conversation with John J. Miller of the National Review on politics and journalism and Pres. Donald Trump’s picks: https://jeromedanner.net/2017/02/03/episode-22-conversation-with-john-j-miller-heymiller-of-hillsdale-nro-ricochet/.