CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza took a typical liberal stand for Sen. Cory Booker on Friday. He criticized the Daily Caller for running a story headlined "Booker facing criticism for Kavanaugh reaction after admitting to groping friend in high school." You can't compare Kavanaugh's controversy with Cory Booker's feminist story-telling in a Stanford Daily column about how grabbing a girl's breast without her consent, he insisted on CNN.com:
And yes, it's true that there are some similarities between the two episodes: Both Booker and Kavanaugh were teenagers, and the incidents -- admitted to and alleged, respectively -- happened decades before they entered public life in any meaningful way. So why is Kavanaugh being raked over the coals -- and watching his nomination to the Supreme Court be jeopardized -- while Booker just gets a pass?
For a lot of reasons -- all of which explain why this comparison is overly facile and just doesn't hold up.
Newark Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine wrote that, “Based on that Stanford Daily column, Booker should be giving Kavanaugh the benefit of the doubt as well. The point of it was that the future senator had ‘a wake-up call’ and decided ‘I will never be the same.'” Booker serves on the Judiciary Committee, and that's why this comparison is made.
If Cillizza doesn't like "overly facile" comparisons, perhaps he should look instead at DNC Deputy Chair Keith Ellison, accused of abusing two different women. But a check of CNN transcripts for Cillizza and "Keith Ellison" in the last three months come up with "No documents found."
Cillizza insists that Booker earns points for admitting his little grope, and seeks to punish Kavanaugh for insisting he's innocent. Like many opportunistic liberal journalists, Cillizza suggests that because Kavanaugh was nominated for a lifetime appointment, he is uniquely positioned for (even deserving of) a last-minute, foggily remembered accusation of "attempted rape." His "character" must be assessed.
Booker is an elected official who, every six years, stands before voters. If voters believe his groping incident -- or any other element of his past or present -- is disqualifying, they get to have their say. They can vote him out. That's not the situation in which Kavanaugh finds himself. He has been nominated to a lifetime appointment on the most powerful court in the country. The public won't ever get to offer up its judgment on his character -- that will be up to the 21 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and, if he makes it through that vote, the full Senate.
Please recall -- because Cillizza and the liberals won't -- that Christine Ford hasn't offered a date or a place for her alleged Kavanaugh assault. Like other liberals, Cillizza doesn't ponder a different comparison: why none of the liberal appointees to a lifetime appointment in the last 25 years have deserved a wild accusation of personal misbehavior from their high-school years.
