There’s a great old movie, a black and white classic called “Counseling and Consent.” I make sure to watch it at least once a year, not just because of the incredible cast that includes Charles Laughton, Henry Fonda, Gene Tierney, Walter Pidgeon and Franchot Tone, but because it’s incredibly relevant six decades after it debuted in cinemas. It’s about DC political traction and a brutally honest examination of how sausage is made.

The title refers to the process by which presidential nominees go through the sausage grinder, the requirement that the Senate must “advise and consent” to executive picks. While most Americans believe that a president should be able to fill his administration with people of his choosing, we also believe that the legislature acts as a necessary brake on the “runaway trains” of some executives.

In “Counsel and Consent,” the president nominates a highly controversial candidate for secretary of state, a man who is suspected of communist sympathies. The film was made during the Cold War, so this was still a hot issue for Americans who had very fresh memories of the McCarthy hearings a decade earlier. I won’t give away the surprise ending, but suffice it to say that the machinations of those opposed to this nominee lead to a good man killing himself.

I remember thinking about that movie when Brett Kavanaugh was being grilled by the woman who just lost the last election, treated as if he were an actual rapist instead of the target of an elderly high schooler’s failed memory of “laughter” and “I think Brett”. he was there in the room.”

I was angry because there seemed to be very little “advice” coming from the Senate and almost no evidence with which they could withhold their “consent”. Fortunately, most senators, including the deeply courageous Susan Collins of Maine, confirmed Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.

Fast forward six years. A new president-elect, who happens to be the same president who elected Kavanaugh (what a world, right?) has announced that he wants a controversial congressman from Florida to be his next attorney general. And I’m thankful the sausage grinder exists.

Matt Gaetz is pretty much nobody’s idea of ​​a qualified nominee. The man is a graduate of William and Mary Law School, a fact that must have the ghost of Thomas Jefferson pulling out his sepulchral hair. He practiced law for less than two years in a civil firm, has no experience in criminal law, and was briefly suspended for failure to pay certain administrative fees, but later reinstated, according to USA Today. He is married to a woman with a name that sounds like it could fit on a tent somewhere, “Ginger Lucky.” He spent most of his adult professional career in Congress, representing Florida’s 1st Congressional District in 2017.

MAGA loves him because they see him as the pit bull that will get Donald Trump whatever he wants. They are right that he is a pit bull and that he is a Trump sycophant who will do everything in his power to ingratiate himself with the future president.

He is also a man who, unlike Kavanaugh, has been credibly accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking. While the Justice Department investigated him and chose not to prosecute, the House Ethics Committee appeared poised to issue a damning report on Gaetz’s activities until he resigned after Trump’s nomination to AG.

Some have suggested that Trump chose Gaetz to prevent him from dealing with a highly embarrassing report. I doubt it. Trump is not in the business of making other people’s lives easier. There is always an angle to him no matter what actions he takes.

I think he chose Gaetz to show the country that he can. That’s it. He chose one of the world’s least qualified lawyers to lead one of the world’s most important law enforcement agencies because he could.

I also think he chose him because he saw a devoted ally and possibly someone who could be easily manipulated into doing what he wanted him to do. Gaetz is basically Stephen Miller, the anti-immigrant bastard, only with a lot of greasy hair.

As you can tell, I’m not a Gaetz fan. But even if I were, I’d be very much a fan of advice and consent. While senators like Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Maisie Hirono were incredibly unfair and hostile to Kavanaugh, I respected the process by which he was vetted. He had the character to survive. Gaetz doesn’t.

I sincerely hope Trump doesn’t try to give Gaetz a break date, even though I doubt he’ll get the opportunity. The American people have a right to see Gaetz in all his blood, I mean glory, and watch the sausage grinder do its thing. Not even the MAGA senators will deny us the show.

And until that starts, I’ll be popping in my Advice and Consent DVD to remind myself that history always repeats itself. Hollywood makes it look so much nicer.

Christine Flowers can be reached at [email protected].