THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST: Senator Hirono’s Double Standard.

On Thursday afternoon, I caught up with Hirono in the Capitol and asked her about the apparent double standard. The Hawaii senator stands by her condemnation of Barrett for saying “sexual preference,” but won’t call on Biden to apologize for using the same term in May 2020:

National Review: Senator, last week at the hearing you mentioned that you thought it was “offensive and outdated” when Amy Barrett used the [term] “sexual preference.” It turns out that Joe Biden said it in May. Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it in 2017. Some of your colleagues on the Judiciary Committee said it maybe in 2010, 2012. Do you stand by that criticism?

Mazie Hirono: Well, of course.

NR: Do you think Joe Biden should apologize for saying that in May?

Hirono: Well, look, it’s a lesson learned for all of us. But when you’re going on the Supreme Court and you’ve been a judge, as one of my judge friends said, you should know what these words mean.

NR: Should Joe Biden apologize, too, like Amy Coney Barrett did?

Hirono: Joe Biden is not up for the Supreme Court.

NR: He’s up for the presidency. So, he shouldn’t apologize?

Hirono: People will decide.

NR: You don’t want to call on him to apologize?

Hirono: Oh, stop it. The world is in flames.

Of course, the state of the world is the same this week as it was last week when Senators Murray and Hirono smeared Barrett as a bigot for using the term, and the argument that either Barrett or Biden did anything wrong is very weak.

As P.J. O’Rourke wrote, “The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numbskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm.”