RELAX, POLITICS HAS NO REAL-WORLD CONSEQUENCES!

I was inclined to worry about the conduct of Republicans during the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court nomination. But the "On Politics" newsletter at The New York Times assures me that I should relax -- it's all just a sporting event for four senators on the committee, and what I really need to be truly informed is a scouting report on their strengths and weaknesses as the big game gets underway.

Four Republican senators on the committee have flashed signs of larger aspirations, and they share a lot else in common. All are men who are roughly within a decade of one another in age. All have one or two Ivy League degrees. Each has sought to mold the Republican Party in his own image. And all approach these hearings knowing they are just as much onstage as Jackson is.

So if they smear Jackson, or anyone else, hey, they're just trying to impress the pro scouts -- I mean, 2024 primary voters. What they say has no real-world consequences at all!

The four are Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and Ben Sasse, and with the possible exception of Sasse, whose brand is a mild, mostly ineffectual contrarianism, I'd say they've all sought to mold themselves in the image of the increasingly crazed and extremist Republican Party, not the other way around.

But maybe I'm not grasping subtle distinctions. The Times tells me that

Cotton is a foreign policy hawk, particularly on China. But he has also staked out hard-right positions on domestic policy, with calls to restrict legal immigration and roll back criminal justice reforms.

This is in stark contrast to Cruz, who

has gone through three main phases during his time in Washington. First he was a Tea Partier known for defying Republican leaders over government spending. Then he was a presidential candidate who came in second to Trump in 2016 by running as a conservative true believer. And now he’s a beard-sporting Trump ally who preaches “America First” dogma with the zeal of a convert.

Is it just me, or was it difficult to notice any change in Cruz's politics as he was undergoing these allegedly dramatic metamorphoses? Sure, his approach to Donald Trump changed -- he embarrassed himself by momentarily defying Trump and then recanted, slobbering all over Trump's wingtips. But Cruz's overall policy approach? Pretty much the same in all these phases, and the same as Cotton's: Libs are evil, and modern Republicans are the spiritual descendants of the Founding Fathers.

Hawley, age 42, is decribed as "the young upstart" (as opposed to Cotton, age 44, who's "the hard-liner"). You can tell Hawley from the others because he's "an evangelical Christian who promotes traditional values" (just like Cruz). Also he "has carved out a significant following on the right by going after tech companies for what he calls their alliance with the 'radical left'" (more or less exactly like Cruz or Cotton).

Hawley's main distinction, we're told, is that

he’s the only one who has bucked the wishes of Senate Republican leaders by forcefully attacking Jackson’s record. Fact-checkers have found his claims wanting, and the White House called them “toxic.”

But we're told that this is significant not because he's expected to utter somewhat viler smears than the others, but because it might give him a leg up if Trump doesn't run in 2024.

He likely won’t be able to stop her confirmation. But the fact that Hawley is fighting Jackson’s nomination at all could endear him to Republicans who want a brawler in their corner.

Yes, it doesn't matter that he's smearing Jackson in a way that twists the facts. What matters is How will it play in Iowa? Attacking Jackson dishonestly isn't good or bad for the country -- it's just the way the game is played, and that should be your takeaway from all this, New York Times reader. Because who cares if Senator Marsha Blackburn -- who isn't mentioned in the "On Politics" story -- smeared Jackson yesterday with insinuations that she's a sinister agent of Big CRT and Big Trans? Who cares if Cruz used his opening statement to argue that Democrats want to use the Supreme Court to subvert democracy? It doesn't matter. All that matters is the horserace.