U.S. President Donald Trump introduces U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana, during a rally at CenturyLink Center on Nov. 14, 2019 in Bossier City, Louisiana. (Photo by Matt Sullivan | Getty Images)
Last week, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy played the role of concerned politician with consummate flair when he made his way around southeast Louisiana, assuring Hurricane Francine victims he was there for them in their time of need.
This week, he’s back in Washington and bringing the wrong kind of attention to our state.
If Kennedy was just marching out his faux corn pone personality yet again, his wearisome schtick would be easy enough to ignore. But our Republican junior senator went beyond the pale Tuesday with his unacceptable questioning of Maya Berry, director of the Arab American Institute, whom Kennedy said “should hide her head in a bag.”
The occasion was a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on antisemitism and anti-Arab hate. The topic has been at the forefront since last October when the terrorist group Hamas attacked a music festival in kibbutz Re’im, killing more than 700 people and taking more than 100 more hostage.
Since then, the Israeli death toll has surpassed 1,000 in subsequent Hamas attacks, while the Jewish state’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 41,000 Palestinians.
The ongoing war has led to tense showdowns on U.S. college campuses, with politicians wandering into the fray. So you would think lawmakers would be careful not to add more fuel to what’s already an incendiary situation, especially members of such an esteemed body as the U.S. Senate.
But not Kennedy, who felt compelled to demonstrate the need for such a hearing when he pressed Berry, an Arab American, to answer whether she supported Hamas and Hezbollah, another terrorist-connected political group.
Unfazed, Berry withstood the onslaught from Kennedy, who continued to ask whether she supported either group even after she made it clear she backed neither.
“Oddly enough, I’m going to say thank you for that question because it demonstrates the purpose of our hearing today,” Berry told the senator.
Undeterred or perhaps unable to hear over his own prattle, Kennedy pressed on and finished with his “head in a bag” comment, drawing groans from other committee members. Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, then allowed Berry to respond.
“This has been regrettably a real disappointment but very much an indication of the danger to our democratic institutions that we’re in now,” she said in conclusion.
Kennedy’s boorish display will likely go over big with his more ardent constituents as well as folks on the far right who encourage such intolerance. This follows the senator’s pattern of Donald Trump-style demagoguery and playing up to the MAGA crowd, whose challenge to their leaders seems to be not “how far can you take us?” but “how low can you go?” in the contest to be the most hateful, insensitive and divisive.
During his political ascension, Kennedy actually held promise as a constitutional scholar and voice of reason and common sense. He delivered on the promise you would expect from a graduate of Vanderbilt University, Virginia School of Law and Oxford University. That held true even after he switched from the Democratic to the Republican Party in 2007.
But upon winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 2017, Kennedy assumed a persona that’s equal parts Foghorn Leghorn, Huckleberry Hound and Jar-Jar Binks — a chimera unwittingly spawned from the Sid and Morty Krofft laboratory.
Louisiana deserves better than a mean-spirited caricature in the U.S. Senate. At the very least, Kennedy needs to be sent a message that the level of rudeness he displayed Tuesday toward Berry doesn’t sit well with the home crowd.
More importantly, Louisiana needs to have a zero-tolerance policy for the people we elected to represent us: No racism, no bigotry, no misogyny, no dogmatism, no more refusal to budge from intransigent views.
Until we do, brace yourselves for more embarrassment.