Typically, if you’re going to derail a congressional hearing to brag about yourself, you probably should include a few actually worthwhile achievements.
Even the most incorrigible braggart knows there is nothing more pathetic than boasting about non-accomplishments.
Unfortunately, it appeared that Texas Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett never got that memo after she was fresh off humiliating herself by getting into a catfight with Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during a committee hearing.
In a video shared to the social media platform X by journalist Tom Elliott, Crockett spoke about how she was “frustrated” during the hearings that day, because the questions surrounding diversity seemed to center around “you’re either diverse or you’re qualified.”
Rep. Crockett (@JasmineForUS) uses a confirmation hearing to tout accomplishments: “I currently hold an honorary doctorate; I also hold a juris doctorate. I also hold a bachelor’s. I also technically hold the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, and I actually… pic.twitter.com/qyVXoNHb97
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 22, 2024
“All I could think about was the fact that I currently hold an honorary doctorate. I also hold a juris doctorate. I also hold a bachelor’s,” she boasted. “I also technically hold the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Civil Air Patrol, and I actually practiced law for almost two decades, in addition to serving on various boards, in addition to being a prior state lawmaker.”
“And there are those who would make some people believe,” Crockett added ominously, “that because I happen to be black, and/or a woman, that somehow, even though I can rattle off all the qualifications in the world, my blackness makes me unqualified.”
Oh, please.
Are you impressed by Jasmine Crockett’s resume?
Based on the mediocre list of accomplishments she so proudly enumerated, she should recognize that it wouldn’t be her “blackness” that disqualified her.
Rather, it would be her pedestrian resume.
The good folks on X were quick to call her out, with one user commenting that “Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs was awarded an honorary doctorate,” and Joel Berry of the Babylon Bee noting how “I was in the Civil Air Patrol and its basically boy scouts.”
Republican Party official Harmeet Dhillon retweeted the video with the caption “Dr Seuss, too, holds an honorary doctorate.” On the same note, another user commented: “It’s the ‘honorary doctorate’ that impresses me the most. Like Obama’s Nobel Peace prize.”
Dr Seuss, too, holds an honorary doctorate. https://t.co/Tpo1txBfiF
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) May 22, 2024
If Crockett thought her honorary doctorate was impressive, she perhaps should’ve thought about it more carefully.
For one, in today’s world of higher education, most degrees themselves are not all that impressive, serving more as evidence that you just shelled out a lot of time and money.
For another, honorary doctorates don’t even convey that much significance.
As Verify helpfully explained, honorary doctorates hold no academic merit, and are instead meant to honor someone’s life work or contributions to a field.
Or, more often, they are just a nice gesture for a commencement speaker. Either way, they hold no academic weight.
The accomplishments Crockett listed were simply not all that impressive for a member of Congress.
In reality, this whole incident was nothing more than a race-baiting stunt to get Crockett more attention, and hopefully better attention than last week’s catty spat with AOC and Greene.
Which she did, but perhaps not quite in the way that she wanted.
Pride does indeed go before a fall.
