Washington Examiner contributor Kimberly Ross expresses very wise sentiments, but perhaps applies them to the wrong situation, in her recent post saying conservatives should not criticize Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., for killing the judicial nomination of Thomas Farr.

Ross writes that Republicans need to do a better job of reaching out to black Americans and of countering the “current narrative” that Republicans are unconcerned, or worse, about racism. “If consideration is not given to [black Americans] when matters of racism come up,” Ross writes, “then they'll remain standing opposite of us.”

Ross is absolutely right in saying those things. The problem is that what Scott, the Senate’s lone black Republican, did actually reinforced the Democrats’ narrative and rewarded their false allegations, rather than refuting them.

The nomination at issue last week was that of Thomas Farr of North Carolina for a federal district court seat. Ross writes that “Scott is correct in refusing to support Thomas Farr due to lingering questions and potential past acts of discrimination.”

But if Scott does not specify what those lingering questions are, which he hasn’t, and if the actual record overwhelmingly shows the criticisms of Farr to be a smear job, then Scott is blocking a superbly qualified nominee for no good reason. Worse, Scott is in effect saying that Democrats are right that Republicans don’t care about racism because every other one of his Republican colleagues and the entire conservative legal community has embraced a nominee about whom there are “lingering questions and potential past acts of discrimination.”

As I explained in two pieces last week, there are no such lingering questions. When Farr in 1984 was involved in sending postcards to black voters, the effort was legal and constructive and not even remotely racist. And when consulted about a postcard campaign in 1990 that did turn into something racially problematic, he clearly and definitively advised against it.

The other nominee Scott blocked, Ryan Bounds of Oregon, was similarly smeared. Without a deep dive into the details, the short version is that Bounds was accused of supporting a viewpoint that, instead, he was making fun of. The accusation not only wasn’t true, but actually twisted around his stance 180 degrees.

Rather than block superbly qualified nominees while helping reinforce allegations that horribly harm their reputations, and rather than give credence to smears (or obvious insinuations) that Republicans in general traffic in racially charged conspiracies, Scott should have issued a statement something like this:



I take allegations of racial insensitivity extremely seriously. That’s why I asked for more time to consider the supposed questions about Mr. Farr’s record. But I also reject and resent false allegations of racial animus. I despise attempts to misuse race as a basis of political fearmongering when the actual facts argue in the other direction.



The race-baiting must stop. The falsehoods must stop. A man who argued against racially charged postcards should not be blamed for those postcards. A man with a superb reputation, attested to even by officials of the Obama administration, should not have his reputation besmirched. Let’s do the right thing, confirm this man — and save our outrage and our energy for combating real, and very important, continuing racial affronts.



Facts matter. Racial reconciliation is harmed, not helped, when facts are discarded in favor of vague, unspecified, and in this case unsubstantiated “doubts” about “a judicial nominee’s record or behavior.”

Tim Scott should know this. Tim Scott has lived this. Tim Scott is a better man than the one who twice has executed last-minute ambushes against superb nominees ready to serve their country.