Dan Rather: Treatment of Jackson by GOP senators ‘beyond shameful’

Broadcast news icon Dan Rather blasted Republican senators for the line of questioning many of them directed at Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Biden’s nominee to the Supreme Court, during her Senate Judiciary Committee hearings last month.

“The treatment of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson by most Republican senators is beyond shameful,” Rather said in a tweet posted on Monday evening.

During Jackson’s hearings, GOP senators like Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Mo.) and Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.) grilled Biden’s pick for the high court about sentences she had handed down to defendants in child pornography cases, asked her about critical race theory and gender studies in classrooms and pressed her on the “definition” of a woman.

Democrats on the committee defended Jackson’s qualifications and expressed dismay in response to the GOP attacks being directed at the judge.

“I am hearing from people, not just Black women, who are relating to me their stories about having to come into a room where you’re more qualified than the people who are sitting in judgment of you and having to endure the absurdities of disrespect that we saw Judge Jackson endure,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said on Monday.

Some media pundits theorized during the hearings that Hawley and others were using the attacks on Jackson’s record in the child porn cases as a dog whistle to QAnon conspiracists, who falsely claim that Democrats in Washington and other prominent liberals are part of child sex rings.

Since leaving the news business full-time, Rather has used his social media accounts to blast former President Trump as well as his allies in Congress and conservative media.

A trio of moderate GOP senators, Mitt Romney (Utah), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine), have indicated they will vote to confirm Jackson.

A full vote on Jackson’s confirmation is expected by the end of the week.