If anything, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-KS, is a gentleman.
Last week Moran bucked his party’s stance and said Judge Merrick B. Garland, nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, should be granted an audience before the Senate, which has the express privilege of vetting presidential nominees to the high court.
It’s the right thing to do, Moran said in so many words, to which fellow conservatives took as evidence he had sold his soul to the devil, or worse, had caved in to a Democratic president.
The alarmists need not worry. Even Sen. Moran himself has admitted he’s predisposed to oppose Garland.
“I am certain a thorough investigation would expose Judge Garland’s record and judicial philosophy, and disqualify him in the eyes of Kansans and Americans,” he said.
Sen. Moran gave the same circumspect review to Judge Wilhelmia Wright in her nomination as a U.S. District Judge serving in Minnesota.
Despite her overwhelming credentials — associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court; judge of the Minnesota Court of Appeals; Yale undergrad and Harvard Law grad — Moran voted against Wright’s appointment.
If those credentials don’t make the mark, what could?
Enough Republicans were convinced Wright was fit for the job and in a Jan. 16 vote she was confirmed. Final tally, 58-36.
And earlier this month Sen. Moran voted against John B. King for Secretary of Education. For the past three years King had been Sec. Arne Duncan’s right-hand man as his Acting Deputy Secretary and before that had cut his teeth as New York’s Education Commissioner.
King received his undergraduate degree from Harvard and law degree from Yale as well as a doctorate in education from Columbia University.
In Sen. Moran’s opinion King still didn’t make the cut.
Others, fortunately, thought differently, and King was confirmed on March 14 by a 49-40 vote, with seven Republicans aligning in his favor.
Not that diplomas and degrees alone make the man or woman. All the education in the world can’t guarantee a person of good morals and sound decision-making. Which is why the awards and accolades that Wright and King have each garnered over their careers further help establish their credentials.
IT’S BECAUSE Moran toes the party line to such extremes that it is news he thinks Judge Garland deserves a hearing.
