Why John Lewis' Testimony Against Jeff Sessions is Not Compelling

With great fanfare, longtime Georgia Congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to speak against the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as Attorney General.


I have read Lewis' testimony and find it unconvincing. Here is a sample of what I mean:


We can pretend the law is blind. We can pretend it is evenhanded. But if we are honest with ourselves we know we are called upon daily by the people we represent to help them deal with unfairness in how the law is written and enforced. Those who are committed to equal justice in our society wonder whether Senator Sessions’ calls for law and order will mean today what it meant it Alabama when I was coming up back then. The rule of law was used to violate the human and civil rights of the poor, the dispossessed, people of color.


At no point in his testimony did Lewis cite any statements and acts on Sessions' part that would disqualify him from consideration much less give pause to the members of the committee. All Lewis did is lump Sessions with George Wallace era Alabama. This is grossly unfair.


But I cannot say that I am surprised at Lewis' behavior. After all, this is a man who compared John McCain and Sarah Palin to George Wallace not long after McCain said he was one of three Americans he most admired. In fact, when I asked Lewis about it during an appearance at Harvard University a few years ago, he told me flat out that he stood by his statement.


This is a man who falsely accused Tea Party activists of hurling racial epithets at him at the height of the Obamacare debate. This is also the man who suggested that African-Americans would be wantonly assaulted at bus stations if Mitt Romney. And for you progressives out there, Lewis even questioned Bernie Sanders' to civil rights less than a year ago. For someone who experienced racism at its worst, it is unbecoming that John Lewis so eagerly accuses others of this same ugliness. It is a shame that he sees fit to take the easy way.


There may be a reasonable argument to be made against confirming Jeff Sessions and chances are I will probably be quite skeptical of the policies he advances in the Trump Administration. But if one is going to testify against a man and his fitness to hold office then I am going to need something a lot more compelling than John Lewis' blanket besmirching of Jeff Sessions' character.