Nina Tottenberg and NPR Pulse Kavanagh mourn the bitterness of bias after rape

Monday’s edition of the NPR Politics podcast sounds a bit bizarre to conservatives. NPR Congress reporter Susan Davis was surprised to see “how much bitterness remains among Republican senators over Brett Kavanagh’s nomination process.” It was mildly ridiculous that their discussion of Kavanagh did not address the real issue of bitterness – an unsubstantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a teenager. Will NPR journalists be bitter? They There were allegations of rape?

Davis said in a very vague way: “Kavanagh obviously had a lot of specific problems as to why this was, but the Supreme Court justices are right – you know, there’s a tendency for party line voting these days ৷ and I’m wondering if you think that’s what it’s going to be like from now on.” He said that we do not live in an almost unanimous vote for the nominees of the Supreme Court (which Ketanji Jackson supposedly deserves). Which party has ruined that trend they have avoided.

Nina Tottenberg – who stabbed Clarence Thomas in 1991 for unprofessional sexual harassment with Anita Hill – was lamenting the bitterly biased tone that seemed to have nothing to do with her and the NPR.

Nina Tottenberg: We don’t live in that time anymore. And there are groups on the right and left who don’t just make a living – they raise money A fan of flames at the confirmation hearing.

That said, I think on the committee today, Republicans and Democrats had some idea that they wanted to lower the temperature. Now, it could be because he’s probably going to be sure, and what will Republicans have to lose if he doesn’t make his life miserable? After all, The optics of beating a black woman is not great politics.

Tottenberg also used this line Morning version Before Monday: “Republicans know that the optics of personally attacking a black woman are less than ideal.”

But somehow the optics of beating a black conservative in 1991 were much better. Using a black woman to do this was apparently the perfect dirty trick. Legal reporter Carrie Johnson then piled up:

Carrie Johnson: You know, I’ve heard a lot of these Republican senators talk bitterly about Brett Kavanagh and the other nominees, people like Miguel Estrada, who was nominated to the top federal appeals court here in DC and never got there because there was a big party. Blockade on his nomination. But what I didn’t hear were two words, and those words Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee, who, after all, has never met with a Republican senator. So there is history on both sides. This can be a very bitter history. That was as bad as it gets.

Is he serious? Not getting a meeting is worse than gang rape?

Of course, Johnson’s memory is wrong. As New York Times Reported in April 2016: “So far, Judge Garland has met with nine of the 19 Republican senators who have stated they are ready to sit with him.”