Prior to the hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee, I was willing to keep an open mind about Brett Kavanaugh, the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court of the United State. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, believing that his eventual appointment to the Court was fate accompli.
However, after watching the end of Tuesday’s hearing, I now am convinced that he doesn’t belong on the Court – any court. He shouldn’t be a judge. Not a judge for an appeals court, a district court, a county court or even a traffic court.
By refusing to accept the hand of the father of a Parkland shooting victim, or even acknowledging his existence, Kavanaugh has clearly demonstrated that he has no empathy. No compassion. No class. By refusing to agree with Sen. Feinstein’s statement that desperate women died of botched abortions or attempted self-abortions prior to Roe v. Wade, he has demonstrated that he has no understanding of history. And by writing the dissent in Heller II, a case involving Washington D.C.’s ban on semi-automatic assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, he has shown that, at best, he is indifferent toward mass shootings and the daily slaughter of men, women and children.
And by continuing to work for Ken Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton long after it became clear that the Clintons were not guilty of any accusations surrounding Whitewater, Kavanaugh demonstrated a high level of political partisanship.
Indeed, there is much to be worried about when reviewing Kavanaugh’s legal opinions. Not the least among them is the fact that he has stated that he disagreed with the Supreme Court decision to force the release of Nixon’s Watergate tapes. He also has an expansive view of the president’s powers.
That, of course, is particularly concerning given the fact that, based on the many indictments and guilty pleas concerning the members of the president’s 2016 election campaign staff. If confirmed to the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh may well have to rule on a case involving the president.
Finally, why should the Senate approve a nominee who has not been properly vetted? Why should the Senate even consider a nominee who has had more than 100,000 pages of his record withheld by the White House? Why should the Senate consider a nominee before having opportunity to read the 450,000 pages of his record released by the majority only hours before the first hearing? Why should Democrats accommodate the Republican majority after they blocked a Supreme Court nominee for most of a year, not even allowing that nominee to get a hearing?
More important, why should the Senate entertain any further nominees by a president who is an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal felony?