Heitkamp, Murkowski put principles above politics
In his book about politicians who put principle over politics and country over career, John Kennedy made famous the story of Sen. Edmund Ross, the Kansas Republican who broke with his party to vote to acquit President Andrew Johnson in his 1868 impeachment trial. Ross’ vote, Kennedy recounted in “Profiles in Courage,” saved Johnson from removal from office. The vote, Kennedy wrote, “may well have preserved constitutional government in the United States.” Ross knew that it would cost him his Senate seat. “I almost looked into my open grave,” he later wrote about his vote, which he understood would nail the coffin door shut on his political future.
If there is a sliver of a silver lining in the spectacle of President Trump’s most recent debasement of our national institutions and that of the Republican senators who have damaged the country by joining him, it is in the examples of Sens. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who have seriously jeopardized their re-election prospects by opposing Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Heitkamp, a Democrat, comes up for re-election in five weeks in North Dakota, a deeply red state in which the Kavanaugh nomination was supported by a 2-1 margin. She announced her opposition a day after a poll showed her trailing her Republican challenger by 10 points, and on the very day that another poll showed her 12 points behind.
Heitkamp might have taken the easy way out by reciting the inane, dishonest formulation concocted by Republican strategists that Christine Blasey Ford’s sworn testimony was “credible” (Trump) and “compelling” (Susan Collins), but that somehow this did not translate into probable cause to believe that Kavanaugh had committed perjury and sexual assault. The gibberish decided on by the GOP was that Ford deserved to be believed in all respects other than her identification of Kavanaugh — even though she accurately remembered the names of Kavanaugh’s close friends, and even given all the other circumstantial evidence that she was telling the truth and Kavanaugh was not. In other words, went the Trump/Collins line, Ford was only fabricating the part about Kavanaugh. Which would mean that she wasn’t “credible” or “compelling” at all. This, quite literally, was nonsense.
Unlike others, including Collins, Heitkamp apparently had little appetite for drivel. “(T)he hearing called into question Judge Kavanaugh’s current temperament, honesty and impartiality,” she declared. “These are critical traits for any nominee to serve on the highest court in the land.” She will probably pay a severe price for courage that set her apart from 50 of her colleagues, including one or two of whom more might have been expected. This by rights should earn her the support of Americans who care about the honor — and survival — of the institutions and traditions on which the nation depends.
Sen. Murkowski distinguished herself from her fellow Republicans by disassociating herself from the ugliness and mendacity that suffused their performance. Alaska is a state in which there are twice as many Republicans as Democrats, and Murkowski’s relationship with her party is already badly strained. She nevertheless refused to be cowed by Trump. “(A)t the end of the day,” Murkowski said, “I could not conclude that (Kavanaugh) is the right person for the court at this time.” Murkowski was the only Senate Republican with the guts to stand up to Trump, who promptly showed what her guts may cost her when she runs for re-election. “I think the people from Alaska will never forgive her for what she did,” Trump urged Alaskans.
The past two weeks have placed on graphic display the dispiriting specter of a national Republican Party that gives every appearance of being morally bankrupt, and of certain Republican senators who, while professing moderation, are in actuality firmly in Trump’s tank. There have been profiles in disgrace and disappointment, to be sure. Heitkamp and Murkowski, at least, have been profiles in courage, and that is something to be thankful for.