Don Lemon Analyzes KBJ Hearing, Hilarity Ensues

BUCK: There’s some good legal analysis out there right now about the KBJ hearings, and there are some not-so-good legal analysts on the scene, too, as you know. If you’re looking for the latter — if you really want some of the most either obsequious or absurd legal analysis —

CLAY: Obsequious! First of all, look at you.

BUCK: Dropping them early today.

CLAY: I know.

BUCK: I had a tweet about how “I might not be an ichthyologist, but I know what a fish is.” Most people are, like, “Oh, ichthyologist! Good word. One who studies bony fish not mammalian aquatic features.” See? Definition. If you want that stuff, go over to CNN and you get it. I have to say, this was particularly good. None other than Don Lemon weighing in on the hearings for Supreme Court seat.

Here he is.

LEMON: Asking, umm, the (snickering) potential jurist the definition of a woman and talking about critical race theory. It is the new… become the new buzz term, like ACORN did and Antifa and on and on. It’s amazing to watch someone who is, quite frankly, an intellectual giant be questioned by people who really have no idea about the law and what judges actually do.

BUCK: Ted Cruz, for example, Sen. Cruz was asking questions yesterday. Kind of went to Harvard school, too, and has argued a bunch of cases in front of the Supreme Court. So I think he knows something about the law, Mr. Lemon.

CLAY: Yeah, and also, look. The idea that somebody is such an “intellectual giant” that they can’t be questioned by someone else, I believe almost everybody on the Senate Judiciary Committee is a lawyer. I think that’s why they’re on the Senate Judiciary Committee. I know not every single person is necessarily a lawyer.

But a lot of those people have very substantial legal backgrounds, and are every bit as accomplished as Ketanji Brown Jackson, right? Like, this idea that there are nine attorneys who are capable — nine judges who are capable — of sitting on the Supreme Court, and that they are of a different intellectual level than everybody else who are lawyers in the country is just, frankly, not true.

Now, do we hope that the Supreme Court justices are legal heavyweights? Yes, that’s what you would want, because there’s only nine seats. Lifetime tenure on the Supreme Court. But it’s a ridiculous proposition from Don Lemon to act like anyone is above being questioned about getting lifetime tenure to sit on the Supreme Court, much more so even when I would feel very confident that many members of the Senate Judiciary Committee are certainly the legal equals of KBJ.

BUCK: To be fair, when you’re Don Lemon, a lot of people seem like intellectual giants.

CLAY: (laughing) That certainly is true. But is Don Lemon even smart enough to judge whether anyone is an intellectual giant or not? I’m not sure I even trust his ability to even tell me what a smart person is.