Cory Booker’s Commodus Moment
By Joe Long| September 7th, 2018
This is the closest I’ll get to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.†Thus spake U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who “violated (a) rule knowingly†in an attempt to obstruct the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.
Or, if we want to be more realistic in understanding what he did, he turned his party’s futile gestures of obstructing the Kavanaugh nomination, to his own political benefit.
In the end, it hasn’t turned out well for him. But let’s take a moment, before the faux “rulebreaking†episode fades, to ponder his “Spartacus†reference.
Spartacus was a slave gladiator. His arena wasn’t an air-conditioned legislature; his shackles weren’t constitutional limitations on government power, or the ethics rules of the United States Senate. His training program did not include Stanford, either at the undergraduate or graduate level. For the amusement of the elites in his day and of the vulgar Roman mob, Spartacus frequently had to kill fellow slaves or accept death for himself. After leading a revolt of fellow slaves, he did choose death in a “last stand†against the vengeful legions.
Hollywood’s version of his story was an inspiring tale of a battle for freedom, and the “Spartacus moment†to which Booker believes he can appeal, presumably, refers to the famous scene in which fellow slaves try to preserve their leader by claiming, one after the other, to be Spartacus. Thus, a “Spartacus moment†would not be any old act of defiance, but specifically, taking the hit for someone else more important than yourself to the resistance, so as to preserve his anonymity. It is precisely the opposite of grandstanding for the sake of increasing one’s own name recognition.
Bit of a metaphor fail, there, Cory.
more
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/07/cory-bookers-commodus-moment/
