An extraordinary thing happened last week on the floor of the U.S. Senate. A Democratic senator from Hawaii, about as far as you can get from Missouri, dispensed with decorum and launched into a withering attack on Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. Floor speeches typically are reserved for the debate of issues and bills but rarely devolve into direct personal attacks. Hawley’s divisive antics over the past year, however, apparently have pushed Hawaii Sen. Brian Schatz too far.
Schatz’s April 7 outburst did nothing to bridge the nation’s deepening political divide, but it served as an overdue response to Hawley’s double-sided morality standards and unbridled hypocrisy. Hawley, a freshman senator who not long ago questioned any Biden administration involvement when Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, now is ranting daily with complaints about the lack of Biden administration involvement in Ukraine.
Hawley also is single-handedly delaying confirmation of Celeste Wallender, the National Security Council’s former Russia director, who is President Joe Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. It’s because Wallender’s service is so badly needed at the Pentagon that Schatz felt compelled to speak out.
