June 27, 2022
Manchin and Collins: 'We wuz robbed.'
By John Mastronardi
No sooner had the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs opinion then West Virginia’s sometimes-rational-Democrat senator Joe Manchin and senior Maine-Squish-Republican, senator Susan Collins, came out expressing their combined horror and indignation over the decision. They both went to say they were aghast that both Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch had apparently misrepresented to them, both in private meetings and during their hearings, that they would respect established precedent. The senators felt “betrayed” by the pair. Manchin was quoted as saying, “I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans.” Collins in her statement said, “This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon.” What each of these senator’s statement reveals, without saying it out loud, was they thought they had a deal. What sort of deal? If you promise not to touch Roe, I will vote for your nomination. In short, the classic quid pro quo. By their comments it was obvious that both senators felt they had been “double-crossed” and they were none too happy about it.
Until Senator Ted Kennedy and his merry band of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, which included the current occupant of the White House, decided, beginning with Robert Bork, then continuing with Clarence Thomas and most recently Brett Kavanaugh, that it was acceptable to try and totally destroy a nominee to prevent the confirmation, the hearings were a fairly humdrum affair. There would be focus on previous opinions, judicial philosophy, etc., but overall, the hearings were, by and large, rather mundane. Since Roe was issued, things changed. As the years after Roe wore on, it seemed Democrats and their leftist constituency became increasingly more concerned about the long-term viability of Roe, which they all knew was grounded on precarious, if not outright specious jurisprudence. The pro-abortion cabal could also see that American attitudes towards abortion were changing, thanks, in large part, to significant advances in neonatal medical science and technology made in the succeeding years. What Americans understood about developing babies when Roe was decided was nowhere near as much as the extensive knowledge gained in the decades following the decision, because of such things as ultrasounds. Further, thanks to other advances in medicine, the age of viability was lowering and there was now the ability to perform intra-uterine surgery to correct defects. If only to make matters worse, Republican after Republican won the presidency, and more conservative justices were being confirmed. As the number of left-leaning justices declined, and the balance on the Court began to shift, the more exercised the Left, their Democrat minions, and the increasingly corrupt media became about the possibility Roe might be severely curtailed or even outright overruled in the future. And so, a litmus test was needed for Republican nominees, except that senators could not directly ask a nominee to state in advance how they would decide a theoretical case involving abortion. In fact, none other than former left-wing icon, the late Justice Ruth “Notorious RBG” Bader Ginsburg, set the standard by successfully dodging all such hypothetical questions at her confirmation hearing. As a result, Democrat senators and Republicans like Collins were reduced to asking nominees indirectly about their thoughts on such topics as long-standing precedents, etc., but which, in their mind, meant overruling Roe. So, in the end, Manchin and Collins thought they had their bargained-for-exchange with Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. When the two did not hold up their end of the perceived bargain, the senators clearly felt they had been “had” and so issued their respective petulant statements. It is, after all, easy to understand their ire, because never before in U.S. history had a Supreme Court nominee ever not ruled the way the president who nominated him wanted him to, or even the senators who confirmed them had hoped. Well, okay, almost never.
more
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/06/manchin_and_collins_we_wuz_robbed.html
