Of all the questions I have heard over many decades listening to Senate and House hearings, I believe I have listened — hands down — to the stupidest question ever uttered by a U.S. senator directed at a witness before the committee on which she sits.
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, actually asked Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson — President Biden’s nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court — to “define a woman.” I will admit that I wasn’t entirely dialed into the topic on which Blackburn was seeking an answer.
However, I watched Judge Jackson’s frozen facial expression after she heard it and was stunned beyond belief that she didn’t bust out laughing at the absurdity of the question.
I am not at all clear how Blackburn intended for Judge Jackson to answer that idiotic query. Does she offer a detailed description of the female anatomy? Blackburn also asked Jackson to “define a man.” Again, does she offer detail on the, um, characteristics that comprise the male anatomy?
When Jackson did not answer Blackburn’s question, the senator then sought to suggest that the jurist was intimidated by the inquiry.
Oh, brother. What I witnessed was a know-nothing politician seeking to embarrass a top-tier jurist. All the pol did was heap ridicule on herself.