I wrote last week about how Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) managed to stump one of Joe Biden’s judicial nominees, Judge Charnell Bjelkengren. Bjelkengren was nominated for a position on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington. But when Sen. Kennedy asked her a couple of questions about the Constitution — to tell him what Article V or Article II pertained to — things went wrong.
Q: “Judge, tell me what article V of the Constitution does?”
Biden judicial nominee: “Article V is not coming to mind at the moment.”
“How about article II?”
Nominee: “Neither is Article II”
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) January 26, 2023
Bjelkengren couldn’t come up with anything on either of them, which would be vitally important to be a federal judge.
When a Trump nominee has some similar trouble, he had the character to ask President Donald Trump to withdraw his name and Trump did.
But as I said last week, Joe Biden and the Democrats were not likely to have the character to react in the same way. If they thought they had the votes from the Democrats, they’d push her through anyway, regardless.
Now, it looks like not only is Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) proving me right, his defense of her only makes things worse for them. What was his defense?
Durbin says he’s confident that Charnelle Bjelkengren, Biden nominee who was stumped by Kennedy over the Constitution, will be confirmed.
“The honest answer is, there aren’t many members of the Judiciary committee who can answer all those questions,” he said
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 31, 2023
“The honest answer is, there aren’t many members of the Judiciary Committee who can answer all those questions,” Durbin said.
Yikes. Did Durbin just say it’s cool because the Democrats are ignorant about the Constitution too? Because that’s what I think I just heard. I don’t think he can speak to the Republicans, certainly not Kennedy who does know the answer. That’s a pretty horrible defense. But even if Democrats like Durbin are ignorant — which is pretty bad, given they’re on the Judiciary Committee — the nominees aren’t supposed to be. If you’re cool with that ignorance, or you try to justify it as Durbin did, then not only is there a problem with the nominee, there’s a problem with the Democrats who are willing to go along with this.
Durbin asked a reporter if knew what Articles II and III were, as though if the reporter didn’t know, that was somehow a defense for the nominee’s ignorance.
Durbin then quizzed me about Article II and III. (Thank god he didn’t ask about V).
“Want to be a judge?” he quipped
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 31, 2023
But a reporter doesn’t have to know, a federal judge does.
Sen. John Kennedy shamed the Democrats again when he said in response, “If you want to be an auto mechanic, you gotta know what a spark plug is.”
That’s it, right there. But that would require the Democrats to care about the quality of their nominees and what was best for the country when all they truly seem to care about is control and power.
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