This Kavanaugh exchange was overlooked

There was a whiff of unity in the Senate confirmation hearings on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Did you catch it?

It showed the spirit we desperately need in these divided times.

The three-minute exchange was easy to miss with all the shouted protests and high-stakes claims being made from the right and the left about the importance of confirming or denying this nomination.

The moment didn’t make headlines. It happened about six hours into Tuesday’s hearing, when Democratic Sen. Cory Booker took the microphone.

Earlier in the day, he had been a leader in the chorus of Democratic voices demanding a delay in the hearing until more documents about Kavanaugh were made available.

The requests were summarily denied by Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley — a Republican.

In welcoming Kavanaugh and his family to the chamber, Booker said: “We are all Americans taking part in a historic moment.”

Then he turned to Grassley:

“Mr. Chairman, I hope you do not think earlier this morning that I was questioning your integrity or your decency ... even though you did not rule in our favor, I do hope you understand that I value your friendship ... I have come to have a deep respect for you.”

This from a Democrat who wants to run for president in 2020 to a Republican who is stalwart in defense of all things GOP.

Grassley responded: “If you worry about our friendship being affected, it will not be — and this gives me an opportunity to say something to the public at large ... you would think Republicans and Democrats don’t talk to each other ... but in the three-and-a-half years I have been chairman, every bill that got out of this committee has been a bipartisan bill.”

Booker came back to point out that he “fundamentally disagrees” with how Grassley handled Democratic demands for more documents.

Then he pivoted again to praise the guys on the other side.

He said that when he first arrived in the Senate in 2013, several Republicans pulled him aside and “gave me a hard talking to.” They included Grassley, Sen. Orrin Hatch and Sen. John McCain.

“They warned me that what goes around comes around,” Booker said, raising the question of how Republicans would be acting if a Democrat were in the White House and the judge before them were a Democratic appointee.

Sadly, the last Democratic appointee was Merrick Garland, appointed by President Obama in March 2016 to fill the vacancy created by the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The GOP-held Senate refused to even hold a hearing on this highly qualified appointee.

The fallout from that hasn’t come around yet. Democrats are not in control of the Senate yet.

But the point of this three-minute exchange between Booker and Grassley is far more significant than any potential political revenge in coming years.

It was a reminder that we can see each other first as Americans and friends despite political differences.

That is especially important in these times when so much of politics is divisive and ugly.

Booker and Grassley rose above it — if only in lip service, if only for a moment.

But it was a moment we needed.