Fan Service

Cory Booker made history yesterday by beating Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record, spending over 24 hours holding the Senate floor. I watched the last part, and it was moving. Booker said all the right things. I think he’s a decent guy, and I think he was sincere.

Then, immediately after his speech, the Senate confirmed Matthew Whitaker to be the permanent representative to NATO on a party line vote. (Correction: Reader J points out that Jean Shaheen I know this happened because I wanted to watch the very end of Booker’s speech with my wife, but unfortunately I was instead faced with the spectre of Jodi Ernst talking about what a great guy Whitaker is.

As I wrote yesterday, I think a Democrat saying something in a way that grabs public interest is a good thing, and I’m not going to shit on Booker’s effort. But the reality is that what the Senate Republicans wanted to accomplish yesterday was to confirm Whitaker, and Whitaker was confirmed. No Senator was sufficiently moved by Booker’s speech to object to unanimous consent to proceed on Whitaker’s confirmation. At least no Democrat made a mockery of Booker’s speech by voting to confirm Whitaker.

Frankly, in other parts of Booker’s speech that I watched during the day, I didn’t like seeing Booker and Schumer’s repartee about sports teams that call themselves “New York” but play in Jersey. Schumer wasted two weeks of what could have been anti-Trump messaging by spending time defending his position as minority leader. In general, there was a little too much “comity of the Senate” in his speech — the “we’re all Senators here and there’s something special about that” attitude has been nothing but damaging this year.

Unless and until some Republican Senators decide that they want to value their oath to the Constitution over their fealty to Donald Trump, they are the enemy. They aid and abet the illegal and immoral dismantling of the government. They are bad people. We do not need to hand it to them in any way, shape or form.

I hope that Booker’s speech moves some Senators to fight a little harder, but unless it does, beating Strom Thurmond’s filibuster record has very little real impact when the heirs of Strom Thurmond’s legacy are running roughshod through the government.