Ben Sasse: Once an academic…

U.S. Senator Ben Sasse has chosen this peculiar moment to announce to the world that he did not want Brett Kavanaugh nominated for the Supreme Court, and that he expressed his reservations to President Trump early in the summer. His declared reason is just the sort of thing one might expect from a career academic and university administrator in the current social climate: Reverse sexism and moral cowardice in the face of neo-Marxist social justice warriors.

“Although I’ve said many complimentary things about Judge Brett Kavanaugh and his distinguished record … I will say that I urged the president back in June and early July to make a different choice before he announced this nomination,” Sasse said during an emotional speech from the Senate floor centering on sexual assault.

Sasse did not say whom he urged Trump to nominate, but that he “urged the president to nominate a woman.”

If it sounds to you as though Sasse is basically conceding that the allegations against Kavanaugh are inherently defensible with or without evidence, and ought to have been deferred to in advance by nominating a woman — any woman — for the position instead of a man, your instincts are correct.

Sasse said he had concerns about the Senate’s ability to handle any potential sexual harassment or sexual assault allegations prior to learning of Kavanaugh’s nomination.

“Part of my argument then was that the very important ‘Me Too’ movement was also very new and that this Senate is not at all well prepared to handle potential allegations of sexual harassment and assault,” he said.

The very important “Me Too” movement. Since when are Twitter hashtags “very important movements”? Very important in what sense? Important enough to automatically disqualify all men from any appointment on which the U.S. Senate might have to deliberate, lest someone raise a “very important” allegation of sexual harassment or assault?

Sasse has just argued on the senate floor that a U.S. president should not nominate men for important positions in the federal government, as a preemptive measure against any “potential allegations” a woman might bring against those men. 

Spoken like a true university administrator.