The horror in Ukraine offered a changed focus from the idiocy in Washington on what used to be normal business. It was gratifying to see almost all our political sides come together over Russia’s cruelty in Ukraine and its threat to the West.

However, the cartoon capering during the confirmation hearing for a Supreme Court nominee managed to divert attention even from that. Americans were awakened from the heroic struggle in Ukraine and again confronted with the moronic culture war that commands attention in Washington. This time, Republican senators attacked Ketanji Brown Jackson, making up positions she never had. They went so far as to link her to a children’s book about race she apparently never heard of.

This is why I wish President Joe Biden hadn’t made a big deal about having to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court. He could have simply nominated Jackson without making it a race-based thing.

Democrats have participated in their own ugly pile-ons, but in this one, Republicans hit a new bottom. Senators are free to oppose a nominee, but must they debase the civic culture with their exhibitionist performances?

Sen. Lindsey Graham basically hollered at Jackson, interrupting her answers and banging the table before storming off. I won’t bother here with his histrionic accusations since they were all for show.

Suffice it to say, Jackson was not “soft on child pornography offenders,” as Sen. Josh Hawley blustered. For the record, Jackson’s sentencing on the matter put her in the “mainstream” of federal judges, according to Ohio State University professor Douglas A. Berman, an expert on criminal law.

Soon after came the revelation that Justice Clarence Thomas’ wife actively supported the insurrection seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The most amazing part is that Virginia Thomas seemed to actually believe that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. In a certifiably crazy text to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows she wrote, “The majority knows Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History.”

For the record once again, former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr says he told his boss Trump that these claims of widespread election fraud were “bulls—.”

Two things to consider here. One is that the spouse of a Supreme Court justice is allowed to pursue a separate career. On the other hand, Clarence Thomas was the only Supreme Court justice to note his dissent when the court turned down Trump’s request to stop the National Archives from sending White House documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 rampage on the Capitol. He should have recused himself.

Several conscientious conservatives currently serve on the Supreme Court. They focus on the law as they see it, whether or not it serves the right’s interests. Thomas, on the other hand, does not seem to have a principled bone in his body.

The partisan creep show over Supreme Court nominees goes way back, but a fairly recent abyss was plumbed in 2016, when Barack Obama chose Merrick Garland. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to even give Garland a hearing with the phony excuse that the winner of an upcoming presidential election should get to pick. That election was seven months away. Four years later, less than a month before the 2020 election, McConnell scheduled a hearing for Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. She was confirmed one week before Americans got to vote.

It says something about the shallowness of our national life that the specter of World War III couldn’t keep the Washington clown show out of our field of vision. Americans were again dragged from heroics to histrionics. Will we never be liberated from these humiliating split screens?

Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com.

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