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Jackson is supremely qualified

Posted: 3/2/22

By Vincent Scala

President Biden made history last week when he nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson as his pick to succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the U.S. Supreme Court. Should the Senate confirm Judge Jackson, the Court will look a little bit more like the United States, circa 2022.

We don’t need to go through her record and reputation. Let’s just say: Harvard College (magna cum laude), Harvard Law School (cum laude and Law Review), clerkships for Federal judges and for Justice Breyer himself, District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals judgeships, all of which add up to an impressive pedigree for any Supreme Court nominee.

Naturally, though, there are some who are intent on disparaging President Biden’s nomination and Judge Jackson’s accomplishments. Tucker Carlson climbed out from under his rock to make the following statement: “Let’s say you wanted to humiliate and degrade it and undermine its ancient institutions. Well, you might take the single most important appointed position in the entire government and announce in public that you were filling that position on the basis of appearance. Not on the basis of skill or wisdom or fealty to the founding documents of the United States, but on the way the person looks. It’s not a question of ‘we found the most qualified person who happens to look this way.’ What you’re saying is ‘we found a person who looks this way, who, by the way, may be qualified.’ That would send a very clear signal that you don’t like the country you run and you don’t care about the institutions that its ancestors built.”

You would be hard pressed to find more nonsense and claptrap than that. It is the definition of poison being injected into your system. How in the world is picking Ketanji Brown Jackson an indication that a President doesn’t “love” his country? How in the world is she “maybe qualified”? One is left with little to say but, “WTF are you talking about?” 

Progress should be easy and should be cause for celebration. It should be exciting and it ought to be satisfying. To people like Tucker Carlson it’s simply fodder for hate, ignorance and stupidity. As I said, Judge Jackson is supremely qualified for the Supreme Court. She represents all the values we hold dear, namely hard work, endurance, dedication, commitment, learning, accomplishment. To thoughtful and aspiring people of all races and genders, her confirmation would be a step along that journey we call progress.

Vincent Scala is a former Bronx Assistant District Attorney. He is currently a criminal-defense attorney in New York City and its suburbs.