Senator Kamala Harris made waves throughout “Resistance” Twitter on Wednesday, when she asked Judge Kavanaugh if he had engaged with anyone at the law firm Kasowitz Benson & Torres. Kavanaugh answered at the time, that he did not know. The firm represents Trump, so naturally this demurral constituted sufficient proof that Kavanaugh was not only hiding something, but part of a concerted effort to protect the president from the Mueller probe.
The truth, of course, is very different. Kavanaugh did not want to answer one way or the other without making sure that he was answering correctly. Reflecting the Arab proverb that, “Saying ‘I don’t know’ is half of knowledge,” Kavanaugh truthfully replied to Harris that he did not know — and then looked up every name at the firm, so that he could answer properly on Thursday. (His answer, after checking, was “No.”) The fact that Kavanaugh sought to do his due diligence before answering the question ought to be treated as a positive, rather than a negative. Lying, under oath or otherwise, is a serious matter. It is a good thing that Judge Kavanaugh recognizes this.
Of course, in this fundamentally unserious act of theater, that principle has been basically jettisoned. Harris’s fellow 2020 presidential hopeful, Cory Booker — a once interesting and insightful senator — topped even Harris’s theatrics. In perhaps the most illustrative case yet of centrist Democrats trying and failing to be “too cool for school” to keep up with the Left (see: Pod Save America), Senator Booker declared that he was going to release confidential documents about Kavanaugh, that in doing so he was committing a prohibited act, and that such a drastic step was mandated by the threat posed by his nomination. Portraying himself as more than simply a “Resistance” figure, Booker compared himself to Spartacus, the famed leader of the Third Servile War, an uprising by slaves against Rome.
As it turns out, Booker did not break any rules at all. His office made sure to clear the release of the documents ahead of time, so everything was above board. When this was revealed, and Booker was pressed on it, he simply insisted he had still broken the rules at some point. The incident was entertaining to watch, but it does reveal something about our political moment.