The Republican National Committee says Sen. Cory Booker’s viral exchange with Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen would have prompted cries of “mansplaining” in the media if he weren’t a Democrat.
Roughly ten minutes of scolding by the New Jersey lawmaker lit up social media this week, but the RNC says the collective silence by his peers suggest a form of selective moral outrage. Mr. Booker excoriated Ms. Nielsen for “amnesia” on Tuesday when she testified under oath that she never heard the president refer to “sh—hole” countries during policy negotiations.
“Picture it,” the RNC said in a statement released Wednesday. “A male Republican senator spends his entire 10 minutes ’mansplaining’ the female DHS secretary about immigration policy, throws around the term ’conscientious stupidity,’ yells at her the only time she tries to speak, and concludes his diatribe without even asking her to respond.”
“There’d be so many triggered Democrats that there’d be a hashtag within minutes, campus protests across the country, and the topic-du-jour for celebrities at Hollywood’s next award show. But because the party affiliations were reversed, Derogatory Cory got nothing but praise from the selectively-outraged base he was clearly performing for yesterday. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
The “nevertheless, she persisted” line became popular with activists after Sen. Elizabeth Warren was rebuked while protesting Sen. Jeff Sessions’s nomination for attorney general in February 2017.
“Sen. Warren was giving a lengthy speech,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said at the time. “She had appeared to violate [a rule against besmirching a fellow senator’s character]. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”
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The Senate voted 49-43 along party lines to halt the Massachusetts Democrat’s speech, which cited a letter that Coretta Scott King had sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1986.
Sen. Cory Booker to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen: “When ignorance and bigotry is allied with power, it’s a dangerous force in our country. Your silence and your amnesia is complicity.” https://t.co/KFBQT4lwKj pic.twitter.com/p5YHIp57zI
— CBS News (@CBSNews) January 16, 2018
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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