Mr. Kennedy, did you beat your wife today? Yes or no.
Kennedy: Did I what?
Senator: Just answer the question, yes or no.
Kennedy: Well, I…
Senator: I’ll take that as a yes. And while I’m at it, do you take pleasure in kicking your dog? Yes or no.
Kennedy: I don’t have a dog.
Senator: But you would kick your dog if you had one, right? Yes or no.
Kennedy: My last dog died of old age.
Senator: Let the record show that the witness is being unresponsive to my questions.
Kennedy: Wait a minute…
Senator: Stop talking over me while I am talking over you. This is my time, not yours.
That is not exactly as it went down at last week’s kangaroo Senate Finance Committee hearings over President Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
But it is close in spirit. The hearings are a joke. Instead of playing out the traditional role of advise and consent, Democrats on the committee turned the hearings into assault and confrontation.
Testy Democrats on the committee, like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and Socialist Independent Bernie Sanders, out to derail Kennedy’s confirmation, savaged him.
Interestingly Warren, Sanders and Kennedy all ran for president and lost. And Whitehouse, despite his name, will also never occupy the White House either.
During several moments in the grilling Kennedy got in a shouting match with Sanders and Warren over who was in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry, which is one of the biggest contributors to politicians in Washington.
Seeking vainly to turn the tables Kennedy said, “Almost all the members of this panel, including yourself, are accepting millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and protecting their interests.”
Sanders maintained that the financial support he got from the health care industry came from workers and not pharmaceutical industry PACs.
“Bernie, you were the single largest acceptor of pharmaceutical dollars, $1.5 million,” Kennedy said.
Warren, who has also accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the pharmaceutical industry, went after anti-vaccine Kennedy for profiting from big pharma lawsuits in a nasty exchange.
Kennedy apparently makes a referral fee from the law firm of Wisner Baum that is suing vaccine maker Merck. Warren implied that Kennedy would continue to profit from the suits as secretary, which Kennedy denied.
They ended up yelling at each other, Kennedy with his raspy voice, and Warren with her with shrill questions.
“No one should be fooled here,” she said.
She said, “As Secretary of HHS, Robert Kennedy will have the power to undercut vaccines and vaccine manufacturing across our country. And for all his talk about ‘follow the science” and his promise that he won’t interfere with those of us who want to vaccinate our kids, the bottom line is the same: Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it.
“Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in,” she said, which had to be the lowest blow of all.
You almost expected the Democrats on the panel to join Warren in a revised version of the LBJ anti-Vietnam War chant, “Hey, hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?”
After being wiped out by Trump, the Democrats are desperate for some sort of victory, even a token one. Kennedy was to be that token. But the committee endorsed his nomination in a 14 to 13 partisan vote.
Kennedy, the object of Warren’s hateful assault, must have asked himself how it was possible that such a nasty individual could hold the Senate seat once held by his uncle, the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, the Lion of the Senate. Or was it all a nightmare?
Just answer yes or no.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
