Now that the shouting is over, let us take stock.

We have put two sniveling, lying crybabies on the Supreme Court, the biggest lying crybaby of them all in the White House, and watched as a majority of Senators have sold their integrity and their votes in hopes of executive favors (campaign support in the upcoming elections), and their majority leader has abandoned his responsible leadership role for that of cringing consigliere to a narcissist real estate tax cheat currently postponing numerous court suits only by virtue of his White House tenancy.

The cloak of dignity having thus been stripped from three of our most revered institutions by these actions, I offer you some historic quotes I find relevant :

George Washington: (who had recently declined to be acclaimed king)

“But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.” 

Brett Kavanaugh: (sobbing in frustration as he saw his cherished nomination endangered)

“I will not be intimidated into withdrawing from this process. You’ve tried hard. You’ve given it your all. No one can question your effort, but your coordinated and well-funded effort to destroy my good name and to destroy my family will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out. You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit. 

Clarence Thomas: (after likening opposition to his nomination to a “lynching”)

I was smart enough to use pot without getting caught, and now I’m on the Supreme Court. If you were stupid enough to get caught, that’s your problem. Your appeal is denied. This 40 year sentence just might teach you a lesson.

The one from Washington is to remind you that we used to consider modesty and civility virtues.

The one from Kavanaugh is to illustrate how far we have come from that long ago time when political opponents respected each other as representatives of all their constituents, regardless of party, and could express themselves with dignity and at least the pretense of a larger mission than mere personal ambition.

The one from Thomas is to revive the memory of a time when a personal desire for revenge in a written court decision would have resulted in a public outcry for impeachment. (Yes, Virginia, there actually was such a time.)

I decline to choose any specific one from among the thousands of recorded quotes from our current President, since I am confident he would either (1) deny it, or (2) contradict it, or (3) make merciless fun of the physical characteristics of whoever brought it up. As to any by his errand boy, Mr O’Connell, I refer you to his announcement, before the Kavanaugh hearing, that nothing Dr Ford or Mr Kavanaugh could say at that hearing was going to change his mind about installing another vote for repeal of Roe v. Wade on the high court. (He later expanded this to include anything the FBI might uncover as well, if I understood him correctly. Remember, too, that he used legislative legerdemain to change the numbers required for submitting a Supreme Court nominee’s name to the full Senate from 67% to 51% — a coup for relentless partisanship fully equal to the founding of the Church of Gerrymander.) The Republican senators who cheerfully followed where his mooning led them will have to speak for themselves, especially those who have the misfortune to be running this November.

Let us hope that there are still some “shreds of decency” left in the land (as invoked in a once widely admired quote from Joseph Welch, Joe McCarthy’s nemesis), and that in future the language of paranoia and bigotry will be drowned out by the votes of a chastened electorate newly reminded of its duty to democracy.