Senate Democrats’ exhausting show of all-out war on President Trump’s Cabinet picks continues, delaying the confirmation vote for Sen. Jeff Sessions as attorney general until dinnertime Wednesday, and for Rep. Tom Price as health secretary until after midnight.
This gave every senator (who cared to) the chance to read that Corettta Scott King letter — an anti-Sessions slam from 1986 that will change no minds in 2017.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was trying to uphold the last vestiges of senatorial courtesy when he stopped Sen. Liz Warren from reading the note into the record.
Sessions, after all, was a sitting senator until his confirmation, and senators traditionally don’t trash-talk each other on the floor. Well, those days are gone.
Still to come: more thunder over such Trump nominees as Scott Pruitt for the Environmental Protection Agency, Andy Puzder for Labor and Steve Mnuchin for Treasury. Maybe, just maybe, Democrats will derail one of them — but the important thing is that Warren and other lefties are raising big money with these stunts.
Ironically, one of Puzder’s biggest problems is that he once (unknowingly) hired an illegal immigrant — an odd thing for a 21st-century Democrat to pretend is outrageous.
At this point, anyway, it seems the Senate minority will try to “run out the clock” on Trump’s pick to run Veterans Affairs — and Dr. David Shulkin is an Obama holdover.
Perhaps the sound and fury will cease by the time Neil Gorsuch’s Supreme Court nomination comes up. At least nine Democratic senators have said they oppose a filibuster, and that includes well-left-of-center types like Chris Coons (Del.), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.).
On the other hand, the party’s base hasn’t yet started demanding scorched-earth tactics on the high-court fight, and the senators have plenty of time to “discover” reasons to change their minds.
Until top Democrats are willing to stand up to the angry left, the kabuki theater will continue.