The confirmation hearing for President Joe Biden's Supreme Court nominee began on Monday and continues today. But the mainstream media clearly is treating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson very differently than it did President Donald Trump's nominees. For example, when Brett Kavanaugh was falsely accused of rape after Democrats realized they weren't going to stop the nomination honestly, MSNBC talking head Elie Mystal went after him hammer and tongs:
Mystal (Sept. 2018): "He knows who she is. He remembers the party … and he's not telling the truth about that. He's not telling the truth about his debt. Baseball tickets – who believes that? … He lied to Congress …. If Kavanaugh succeeds, it is a moral failing of the process."
Now President Biden has a nominee before the Senate and Mystal is deeply offended that a Republican senator would even dare to ask Jackson about her sentencing of child sex predators as a lower-court judge:
Mystal (Mar. 19, 2022): "What Josh Hawley is doing when he tries to do this, is he's trying to get her killed. He's trying to get violence done against a Supreme Court nominee."
Curtis Houck of Media Research Center says it isn't just Mystal who has some glaring hypocrisy – every liberal outlet, he argues, is just as guilty.
"[Those outlets are] peddling White House spin that [any] questions about her record, specifically when it comes to issues such as child sex predators' sentencing, [are] "not true, it's something the Republicans are accusing them of." [They're] making it seem like it's very partisan."
Houck notes it is below Senate Republicans to falsely trash a nominee's character, but liberal outlets are pretending Biden has nominated a non-partisan centrist to the high court.
"Now that certain Republicans are intent on taking the high road or really sticking to the issues – which [actually] is kind of the whole point in these confirmation hearings – they're really reveling in the fact that things are back to usual in Washington," he tells AFN.
A centrist? Really?
According to First Liberty Institute, Jackson was one of the most frequently reversed judges on the DC federal district court. Even liberal judges, says First Liberty, frequently ruled against Jackson, who moved to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021 after eight years as district court judge.
One of the attorneys with First Liberty expects to hear more about the times in which Jackson's rulings were overturned by a higher court.
"I think you have to ask yourself why that reversal rate exists," says attorney Keisha Russell. "The first reason is that it could be that she doesn't have the ability to properly interpret the law – but that's unlikely given her background [as] she went to Harvard for undergrad and law school."
The other option, Russell suggests, involves Jackson engaging in judicial activism or reinterpreting the law in order to fit a current cultural position on a particularly controversial ideological subject.
"Some of the judges on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals who reversed her were [also] Democratic appointees," Russell tells AFN. "Senators may ask her 'Why do you think those people didn't agree with your interpretation of the law?' and 'What kind of things would you put in place to ensure that you don't have that issue again?'"
First Liberty: What Americans must know as Senate hearings begin for Ketanji Brown Jackson
Cruz: 'We're not like them'
On Monday, Senate Judiciary Committee member Ted Cruz (R-Texas) assured Jackson that his fellow Republicans will treat her respectfully – unlike Democrats did during hearings for Trump nominees Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. But he also assured Biden's nominee she would face tough questioning.
"Judge Jackson, I can assure you that your hearing will feature none of that disgraceful behavior," the Texas senator stated. "No one is going to inquire into your teenage dating habits. No one is going to ask you with mock severity, 'Do you like beer?'
"But that's not to say this hearing should be non-substantive and non-vigorous. In this hearing, this committee has a responsibility to focus on issues, to focus on your record, to focus on substance."
And Cruz promised the hearing will not be a "political circus" – and "not the kind of character smear that, sadly, our Democratic colleagues have gotten very good at."
