KLMNO
Outlook
SUNDAY, MARCH 27 , 2022. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/OUTLOOK. SECTION B EZ BD
INSIDE OUTLOOK
Why China won’t let Russia
lose the war. B3Time to stock up on masks
and rapid tests again. B5INSIDE BOOK WORLD
‘Mr. NAACP’ passed as White
for his cause. B6The attraction of mandatory
voting for Americans. B7P
olish Prime Minister Mateusz
Morawiecki thinks the United
States needs to do more to help
Ukraine. Morawiecki and two other
NATO leaders heard firsthand last
week what weapons Ukrainian Presi-
dent Volodymyr Zelensky believes
Ukraine needs to survive the brutal
ongoing Russian invasion, after they
took a 10-hour train ride from War-
saw to Kyiv to visit and show support.
This week, The Post’s Lally Wey-
mouth spoke at length with
Morawiecki via Zoom, before NATO
and European allies gathered to dis-
cuss the war. Edited excerpts follow:Q. Are you satisfied by the U.S. re-
sponse to the war in Ukraine? Is
there something more you would like
to see the United States do?
A. There should be much bigger sup-
port from the United States because
the Ukrainians are risking their lives.
Germany and France and many other
countries are not doing enough. We
have to give them at least defensive
weapons to defend their homes, their
lives and their families. This is ex-
tremely urgent.Q. So you’d like to see more support
from the United States?
A. More support from the U.S.: Jave-
lins, Stingers, all sorts of different de-
fensive weapons, antitank, antiair-
craft, antimissile, portable defense.
These are weapons which are not
threatening Russia. These are purely
defensive weapons.Q. They’re not getting through to
Ukraine?
A. They are not coming through in
sufficient quantities.
SEE MORAWIECKI ON B4Poland fears
it’s next if
Russia wins
in Ukraine
Prime Minister Mateusz
Morawiecki speaks with
T he Post’s Lally WeymouthF
or more than two decades, confirmation
hearings for Supreme Court justices have
revolved around a single question: wheth-
er the nominee would uphold or overrule
Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision
that recognized nationwide a woman’s right to
choose an abortion. As far back as the ill-fated
confirmation hearings for Robert Bork in 1987,
abortion has always been the elephant in the room,
prompting thinly veiled questions about fidelity to
precedent and “unenumerated rights” — rights not
explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.
With this in mind, the hearings for Judge Ketanji
Brown Jackson was unlike those that came before.
Not only is Jackson the first Black woman to be
nominated to the high court, but she is also the first
nominee to be vetted in a soon-to-be post-Roe
landscape. Pending on the high court’s docket is a
challenge to a Mississippi law that bans abortion at
15 weeks — a case that is widely expected to mark
the end of legal abortion nationally. Nevertheless,
between their grandstanding about critical race
theory and ludicrous allegations about Jackson’s
sentencing of sex offenders, Republicans continued
to pelt her with questions about unenumerated and
“judge-made” rights.
What explains the GOP’s almost-obsessive focus
on unenumerated rights, given Roe’s possible
demise in a few months? Critically, the reach of
these sorts of rights is not limited to abortion. Since
1923, the Supreme Court has recognized a range of
SEE JACKSON ON B2By William HanageA
s a genre, vaccine development
memoirs are a bit niche. But,
given how important vaccines
are to us all, and not only against
covid but also many other diseases,
we could stand to know a lot more
about how these lifesaving products
come into being and how they can be
developed so darned quick.
Albert Bourla, the chief executive
of Pfizer, is ideally placed to provide
such insight, and the subtitle to his
book, “Moonshot” — “Inside Pfizer’s
Nine-Month Race to Make the Impos-
sible Possible” — sets up expectations
of a breathless page-turner. But the
skill set that makes for a successful
chief executive of an international
pharmaceutical company does not
necessarily produce sparkling prose,
and “Moonshot” is at times a pedestri-
an account of a truly remarkable
scientific advance achieved under ex-
traordinary pressure.
As Bourla lays out early on, it is a
long and uncertain voyage from the
germ of an idea to a shot in the arm, so
my main area of curiosity was just
SEE VACCINE ON B5‘Moonshot’ isdestined to be areference — butnot much moreLAURA COLEMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Ketanji Brown
Jackson and the
culture wars
The hearings showed Republicans
won’t stop at overturning Roe, says
law professor Melissa MurrayB
eneath the surface of Judge Ketanji Brown
Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation
hearings this past week, another proceed-
ing was underway. It went on quietly in the
background, masked by two unending
days of senatorial questions and monologuing that
bookended all of the judge’s responses. Amidst the
inquiry into Jackson’s fitness to become the first
Black woman on the nation’s highest court, Ameri-
can patriotism was on trial.
As the nation’s spotlight turned to the hearings,
competing versions of patriotism were on display.
Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-N.J.) rousing and emotional
speech on the second day of questioning typified one
vision. “There is a love in this country that is
extraordinary,” Booker explained before pointing to
Jackson’s parents, who faced Jim Crow’s racial
discrimination, and saying, “They didn’t stop loving
this country even though this country didn’t love
them back.” Running through the discrimination
faced by Black Americans and immigrants from
everywhere from China to Ireland, Booker explained
that real patriotism declares, “America, you may not
love me yet, but I’m going to make this nation live up
to its promise and hope.”
Booker’s speech echoed Jackson’s nomination
acceptance remarks at the White House last month,
her opening statement on the hearings’ first day and
the tenor of many of her answers throughout. She
paid homage to Black civil rights icons as told the
Senate, “I hope that you will see how much I love our
SEE PATRIOTISM ON B3The unspoken question all week was
who gets to call themselves a patriot,
writes author Theodore R. Johnson