The kabuki theater surrounding the approval of Judge Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court passed over into farce almost before it began yesterday. Mrs. Animal and I listened to the opening of proceedings yesterday morning (courtesy of satellite radio) while crossing the country, and I have to say, the opposition embarrassed themselves with their hysterics. The proceedings opened with shrieking protesters in the chamber and grandstanding Senators issuing pointless motions to adjourn. None of it had any effect and the offenders knew these embarrassing shenanigans would have no effect; it was merely theater of the absurd, the progressive wing of the Democratic party throwing some red meat to their base and in so doing wasting everybody else’s time.
Oh, and meanwhile, the Republicans actually looked like the grown-ups in the room.
Spectator USA’s Roger Kimball predicts Kavanaugh will be approved handily, and I think he’s right. Excerpt:
Although the malodorous cloud of the disgusting treatment meted out to to Judge Robert Bork in 1987 has hung over every subsequent Republican nominee to the Court, I am confident that Judge Kavanaugh will escape anything like Teddy Kennedy’s mendacious ‘in Robert Bork’s America’ attacks.
Yes, the Committee includes Cory Booker, Democratic Senator from New Jersey, who once said that supporters of Brett Kavanaugh were ‘complicit in evil.’ And there’s also Kamala Harris, Democratic Senator from California, who can be counted on to be antagonistic. But neither is in the same class as Kennedy when it comes to swaggering rhetorical dissimulation and character assassination.
Then, too, Brett Kavanaugh, although indisputably conservative in disposition, has not driven Democrats to pretended apoplexy as did Judge Bork. (It is not everyone, after all, who can claim the distinction of bequeathing his surname to the language as a transitive verb.) In years to come, no one is going to talk about ‘kavanaughing’ a candidate.
And here’s why:
The problem for Chuck Schumer and others who would like nothing more than to squelch President Trump’s nomination is that Kavanaugh’s views are smack dab in the middle of respectable legal opinion. It is instructive to read a few of his opinions. They are methodically presented, carefully researched, and quietly but persuasively argued. He thinks judges should say what they law is, not make policy. Not much there for Dems to sink their fangs into.
Like Justice Gorsuch before him, Judge (soon to be Justice) Kavanaugh is basically Captain America. He’s the dictionary definition of an idea pick to the Supreme Court: An educated, thoughtful, principled jurist who will apply not personal preference nor the whim of the mob to his decisions, but rather the Constitution.
That’s what the Founders envisioned. That’s what the nation deserves. And, by the end of this process, that’s what we’ll have.
