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I wonder if Joe Manchin, the Democratic senior senator from the Mountain State, saw the headline in the Washington Post’s Opinion section on Tuesday about Susan Collins needing to own up to her decision to back Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court.

Collins, of course, is the Republican senator from Maine who pals around with Manchin at those small centrist policy gatherings in D.C.

As best I can tell, that club is down to the two of them, plus Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Arizona. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, stops by on occasion but typically does not stay long, especially when abortion is on the table.

To show just how out of favor the centrists have become in American politics, they are badly outnumbered nowadays by far-right Republicans in the Crazier than a Loon wing of the Freedom Caucus. And why not, with the likes of Paul Gosar, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Louie Gohmert dominating the stage with their antics, it’s kind of like watching a NASCAR race, waiting for the inevitable 10-car media pileup. That’s a much preferred distraction for the good ol’ boys and girls back home than going deep – boring! – on any important, substantive policy initiative designed to make the gears of democracy work with less friction.

Occasionally, the centrists hold club meetings in front of TV cameras, showing the stress and strain of casting deciding votes on any one of a number of hot topic debates. At other times, they gather on the Potomac on Joe’s $700,000 houseboat – the best that coal gob, the garbage of bituminous, can buy. 

As you may remember, Collins – back in 2018 when the Senate was considering the nomination of Kavanaugh to the Court – told one and all that she was certain the young jurist would certainly not vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, a landmark court decision from way back in 1973 that found the Constitution of the United States generally protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to choose to have an abortion. Duly convinced that Kavanaugh was telling her the truth and that she had the right read on the young fella, well, she voted to confirm.

She pulled the same stunt the year prior when she voted for the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the court.

The confirmation vote for Kavanaugh? 50 to 48, right down party lines. Well, except for Manchin. He jumped ship to vote for the nominee – the only Democrat to do so.

And, yes, your math is correct. Had Collins and Manchin voted differently that day, we may not be having this national discussion today.

Now, Collins is out on a self-serving, woe-is-me “I was misled” tour, refusing to accept the fact that she was hoodwinked and fooled like nobody’s business.

“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon,” Collins said in a statement.

Manchin? This is rich. Earlier this year, he voted against federal legislation that would have codified Roe’s safeguards, and now wants us to believe, in the aftermath of Roe being reduced to rubble, that he would “support legislation that would codify the rights Roe v. Wade previously protected.”

“I am hopeful Democrats and Republicans will come together to put forward a piece of legislation that would just do that.”

And if you believe that, dear reader, Joe has an old rust bucket of a container vessel he’d like to sell you as a luxury yacht.

— J. Damon Cain is executive editor of The Register-Herald.

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