With Brett Kavanaugh, as with Donald Trump, Conservatives Defend a Tainted Nominee

[The Petulant Pumpkin In Chief]

----------
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/with-brett-kavanaugh-as-with
-donald-trump-conservatives-defend-a-tainted-nominee
*With Brett Kavanaugh, as with Donald Trump, Conservatives Defend a
Tainted Nominee* by Osita Nwanevu
September 29, 2018
On Thursday morning, Brett Kavanaugh
[https://www.newyorker.com/tag/brett-kavanaugh] was a dead man walking.
At midday, he sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing a wreck.
But that evening he left the hearing again a viable nominee. The
Democrats, who seemed more interested in building the case for an F.B.I.
investigation than landing finishing blows with their lines of
questioning, left him mostly unscathed. In a surprise move on Friday,
Senator Jeff Flake
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/jeff-flakes-limited-resistance]
announced his support for an investigation that would last no more than
a week. His fellow-Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, then
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and, finally, President Trump
[https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump] himself followed suit.
It seems unlikely that a limited investigation will turn up anything
like definitive proof of the allegations that have been levelled against
Kavanaugh. And it certainly won’t reveal more about the kind of man
Kavanaugh really is than did his opening remarks to the Judiciary
Committee. He followed Christine Blasey Ford’s
[https://www.newyorker.com/tag/christine-blasey-ford] painful and
painfully cautious testimony with a conspiratorial rant inflected with
invective and pure bile. “This whole two-week effort has been a
calculated and orchestrated political hit,” he said early on,
“fuelled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the
2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial
record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in
money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
This was followed by an emotional crash that left Kavanaugh nearly
sobbing as he recounted his boyhood to the committee — his platonic
closeness with his female friends, how he was inspired by his father to
keep detailed calendars, the fact that those calendars did not record
his attendance at church on Sundays because, for young Brett Kavanaugh,
“going to church on Sundays was like brushing my teeth: automatic.
Still is.” The implication was that the court of public opinion is
trying not Brett Kavanaugh but the very idea of the All-American
boy—good-natured, mischievous, but harmless. That Brett Kavanaugh was
a decent kid who may have erred here and there but only did so in good
fun, and that investigating the allegations levelled by Ford, Deborah
Ramirez
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-
new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-
kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez], and Julie Swetnick
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/the-last-minute-allegations-again
st-brett-kavanaugh] in earnest would amount to marching Tom Sawyer, Opie
Taylor, and the Beaver single-file to the guillotine. This was what
moved Senators John Cornyn and Ben Sasse to seemingly genuine tears
during Kavanaugh’s testimony. But it was Lindsey Graham who went
apoplectic. “What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold
this seat open, and hope you win in 2020,” he shouted at Democrats
during his turn for questions. “This is the most unethical sham since
I’ve been in politics.”
“Boy, y’all want power,” he continued. “God, I hope you never
get it.”
We are, obviously, far afield from the concerns that dominated the
initial hearings—Kavanaugh’s support for unitary executive theory,
his stance on Roe v. Wade
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-republicans-could-regre
t-overturning-roe-v-wade], missing documents from the Bush White House,
and so on. The Kavanaugh nomination is now, in part, a referendum on the
#MeToo movement [https://www.newyorker.com/tag/metoo] — on whether the
goodness of successful men, with families and the respect of their
peers, should be taken for granted, and whether the women who have
suffered abuse, but who don’t possess the kind of evidence a
prosecutor might find satisfying, should remain silent and invisible
lest they sully sterling reputations. In truth, these confirmation
fights, despite the high rhetoric offered by nominated jurists, have
always been fronts in the culture wars and contests for political
office. Now that the curtain has been pulled on this particular
nomination, Kavanaugh — by appearing in a prime-time TV interview, and
in casting the accusations, incredibly, as a conspiracy against him
orchestrated by allies of the Clintons — has shown himself to be
exactly the political operative he was when he was working under Ken
Starr and as a hired gun for the Bush Administration. He is, backed into
a corner and stripped of his robes, the quintessential Fox News man —
both gladiator and perpetual victim, another “white male,” as Graham
called himself on Friday, told to shut up and go away by feminists and a
vindictive left. Belligerent, wounded, proud, timorous, and entitled —
a man given to gaslighting and dissembling under pressure. He is a
personality type well known to victimized women and familiar now to all
who have followed American politics in the age of Trump. Should he be
confirmed, he will have the power to color rulings from the highest
court in the land with the biases and emotionality he has revealed this
past week until, if he so chooses, he drops dead.
As of now, it’s possible that Kavanaugh never gets there. But, the
misconduct allegations aside, Kavanaugh’s conduct at Thursday’s
hearing should have raised new questions for conservatives about his
temperament and judiciousness, questions that might themselves justify
pulling Kavanaugh’s nomination, albeit to choose another nominee from
a short list of conservative picks curated by the Administration. But
the Trump Administration hasn’t signalled a willingness to withdraw,
and establishment conservatives have mounted outrageous, Trumpian
defenses of Kavanaugh, even as Trump himself has been
uncharacteristically muted on the saga by comparison.
Conspiracy theories about Kavanaugh’s accusers—that Ramirez was an
agent of George Soros, for instance, or that Kavanaugh’s mother, a
district-court judge, had ruled against Ford’s parents in a
foreclosure case—were offered not only by the likes of the Daily
Caller
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/18/how-conservative-medi
a-reacted-christine-ford-accusation-against-brett-kavanaugh/] and
Trumpists at the site Big League Politics
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/kavanaugh-fact-check.html
] this week but also by the NeverTrumper Erick Erickson
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-kav
anaughs-fact-check.html], who has called Ford a “partisan hack”
[https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1042203143608717312], and a
reporter for 'National Review'. It was Ed Whelan — who heads something
called the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is a man Washington
conservatives consider “a sober-minded straight shooter,” according
to Politico
[https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/20/kavanaugh-confirmation-allegat
ions-rumors-830725] — who potentially defamed a Georgetown Prep
alumnus with unfounded speculation about a Kavanaugh
“doppelgÀnger,” a theory that could have originated on the
right-wing message boards that birthed Pizzagate and are now fuelling
QAnon. The kind of discrediting rhetoric that was deployed by supporters
of Trump and Roy Moore in the wake of allegations against them—that
the charges had come after too many years, that the women bear blame or
should be regarded skeptically for being in situations in which abuse
might take place — was let loose by respected figures like the
'National Review' editor, Rich Lowry. “Why,” he asked, of Swetnick,
on Wednesday, “would she constantly attend parties where she believed
girls were being gang-raped?”
[https://twitter.com/RichLowry/status/1044981453648539649] And the
'Times’' Bari Weiss
[https://www.businessinsider.com/bari-weiss-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assaul
t-comments-2018-9] and the former Bush Administration press secretary
Ari Fleischer
[https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/09/17/ari-fleischer-kavanaugh-sh
ould-committing-sexual-assault-high-school-deny-us-chances-later-life/221
330], both on the center-right, were among those who suggested that
Kavanaugh should be advanced even if the allegations levelled by Ford
are true.
It is often argued by this crowd that broad criticisms of the right risk
pushing sensible conservatives toward Trumpism. But the events of the
past two weeks have made plain just how illusory and superficial the
differences between the respectable establishment and the Trumpists
really are. For at least the second time in as many years, the vast
majority of the conservative movement has abandoned all pretenses to
sobriety and civility on behalf of a tainted nominee. And it cannot be
said now, as it was in November, 2016, that the man in question is the
best or only option for those committed to conservative policy
objectives. Backing Brett Kavanaugh is a choice conservatives have made
over viable alternatives—qualified conservative candidates who could
be spirited through the nomination process before November’s elections
or in the lame-duck session by a Republican Senate that has already
proved itself capable of sidestepping the required procedural hurdles.
They have chosen this course because the Kavanaugh nomination has
presented the movement with a golden opportunity to accomplish two
things more valuable, evidently, than merely placing another
conservative on the court: standing against the new culture of
accountability for sexual abuse and, at least as important, thumbing
their noses at an angry and despairing Democratic Party. ----------

Kavanaugh, instead of being an impartial judicial, is so far right wing
that one day he's going to cut off his left arm out of spite.

[The Petulant Pumpkin In Chief]

----------
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/with-brett-kavanaugh-as-with
-donald-trump-conservatives-defend-a-tainted-nominee
*With Brett Kavanaugh, as with Donald Trump, Conservatives Defend a
Tainted Nominee* by Osita Nwanevu
September 29, 2018
On Thursday morning, Brett Kavanaugh
[https://www.newyorker.com/tag/brett-kavanaugh] was a dead man walking.
At midday, he sat before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing a wreck.
But that evening he left the hearing again a viable nominee. The
Democrats, who seemed more interested in building the case for an F.B.I.
investigation than landing finishing blows with their lines of
questioning, left him mostly unscathed. In a surprise move on Friday,
Senator Jeff Flake
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/jeff-flakes-limited-resistance]
announced his support for an investigation that would last no more than
a week. His fellow-Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, then
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and, finally, President Trump
[https://www.newyorker.com/tag/donald-trump] himself followed suit.
It seems unlikely that a limited investigation will turn up anything
like definitive proof of the allegations that have been levelled against
Kavanaugh. And it certainly won’t reveal more about the kind of man
Kavanaugh really is than did his opening remarks to the Judiciary
Committee. He followed Christine Blasey Ford’s
[https://www.newyorker.com/tag/christine-blasey-ford] painful and
painfully cautious testimony with a conspiratorial rant inflected with
invective and pure bile. “This whole two-week effort has been a
calculated and orchestrated political hit,” he said early on,
“fuelled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the
2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial
record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in
money from outside left-wing opposition groups.”
This was followed by an emotional crash that left Kavanaugh nearly
sobbing as he recounted his boyhood to the committee — his platonic
closeness with his female friends, how he was inspired by his father to
keep detailed calendars, the fact that those calendars did not record
his attendance at church on Sundays because, for young Brett Kavanaugh,
“going to church on Sundays was like brushing my teeth: automatic.
Still is.” The implication was that the court of public opinion is
trying not Brett Kavanaugh but the very idea of the All-American
boy—good-natured, mischievous, but harmless. That Brett Kavanaugh was
a decent kid who may have erred here and there but only did so in good
fun, and that investigating the allegations levelled by Ford, Deborah
Ramirez
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/senate-democrats-investigate-a-
new-allegation-of-sexual-misconduct-from-the-supreme-court-nominee-brett-
kavanaughs-college-years-deborah-ramirez], and Julie Swetnick
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/current/the-last-minute-allegations-again
st-brett-kavanaugh] in earnest would amount to marching Tom Sawyer, Opie
Taylor, and the Beaver single-file to the guillotine. This was what
moved Senators John Cornyn and Ben Sasse to seemingly genuine tears
during Kavanaugh’s testimony. But it was Lindsey Graham who went
apoplectic. “What you want to do is destroy this guy’s life, hold
this seat open, and hope you win in 2020,” he shouted at Democrats
during his turn for questions. “This is the most unethical sham since
I’ve been in politics.”
“Boy, y’all want power,” he continued. “God, I hope you never
get it.”
We are, obviously, far afield from the concerns that dominated the
initial hearings—Kavanaugh’s support for unitary executive theory,
his stance on Roe v. Wade
[https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-republicans-could-regre
t-overturning-roe-v-wade], missing documents from the Bush White House,
and so on. The Kavanaugh nomination is now, in part, a referendum on the
#MeToo movement [https://www.newyorker.com/tag/metoo] — on whether the
goodness of successful men, with families and the respect of their
peers, should be taken for granted, and whether the women who have
suffered abuse, but who don’t possess the kind of evidence a
prosecutor might find satisfying, should remain silent and invisible
lest they sully sterling reputations. In truth, these confirmation
fights, despite the high rhetoric offered by nominated jurists, have
always been fronts in the culture wars and contests for political
office. Now that the curtain has been pulled on this particular
nomination, Kavanaugh — by appearing in a prime-time TV interview, and
in casting the accusations, incredibly, as a conspiracy against him
orchestrated by allies of the Clintons — has shown himself to be
exactly the political operative he was when he was working under Ken
Starr and as a hired gun for the Bush Administration. He is, backed into
a corner and stripped of his robes, the quintessential Fox News man —
both gladiator and perpetual victim, another “white male,” as Graham
called himself on Friday, told to shut up and go away by feminists and a
vindictive left. Belligerent, wounded, proud, timorous, and entitled —
a man given to gaslighting and dissembling under pressure. He is a
personality type well known to victimized women and familiar now to all
who have followed American politics in the age of Trump. Should he be
confirmed, he will have the power to color rulings from the highest
court in the land with the biases and emotionality he has revealed this
past week until, if he so chooses, he drops dead.
As of now, it’s possible that Kavanaugh never gets there. But, the
misconduct allegations aside, Kavanaugh’s conduct at Thursday’s
hearing should have raised new questions for conservatives about his
temperament and judiciousness, questions that might themselves justify
pulling Kavanaugh’s nomination, albeit to choose another nominee from
a short list of conservative picks curated by the Administration. But
the Trump Administration hasn’t signalled a willingness to withdraw,
and establishment conservatives have mounted outrageous, Trumpian
defenses of Kavanaugh, even as Trump himself has been
uncharacteristically muted on the saga by comparison.
Conspiracy theories about Kavanaugh’s accusers—that Ramirez was an
agent of George Soros, for instance, or that Kavanaugh’s mother, a
district-court judge, had ruled against Ford’s parents in a
foreclosure case—were offered not only by the likes of the Daily
Caller
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2018/09/18/how-conservative-medi
a-reacted-christine-ford-accusation-against-brett-kavanaugh/] and
Trumpists at the site Big League Politics
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/26/us/politics/kavanaugh-fact-check.html
] this week but also by the NeverTrumper Erick Erickson
[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/19/us/politics/christine-blasey-ford-kav
anaughs-fact-check.html], who has called Ford a “partisan hack”
[https://twitter.com/EWErickson/status/1042203143608717312], and a
reporter for 'National Review'. It was Ed Whelan — who heads something
called the Ethics and Public Policy Center and is a man Washington
conservatives consider “a sober-minded straight shooter,” according
to Politico
[https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/20/kavanaugh-confirmation-allegat
ions-rumors-830725] — who potentially defamed a Georgetown Prep
alumnus with unfounded speculation about a Kavanaugh
“doppelgÀnger,” a theory that could have originated on the
right-wing message boards that birthed Pizzagate and are now fuelling
QAnon. The kind of discrediting rhetoric that was deployed by supporters
of Trump and Roy Moore in the wake of allegations against them—that
the charges had come after too many years, that the women bear blame or
should be regarded skeptically for being in situations in which abuse
might take place — was let loose by respected figures like the
'National Review' editor, Rich Lowry. “Why,” he asked, of Swetnick,
on Wednesday, “would she constantly attend parties where she believed
girls were being gang-raped?”
[https://twitter.com/RichLowry/status/1044981453648539649] And the
'Times’' Bari Weiss
[https://www.businessinsider.com/bari-weiss-brett-kavanaugh-sexual-assaul
t-comments-2018-9] and the former Bush Administration press secretary
Ari Fleischer
[https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2018/09/17/ari-fleischer-kavanaugh-sh
ould-committing-sexual-assault-high-school-deny-us-chances-later-life/221
330], both on the center-right, were among those who suggested that
Kavanaugh should be advanced even if the allegations levelled by Ford
are true.
It is often argued by this crowd that broad criticisms of the right risk
pushing sensible conservatives toward Trumpism. But the events of the
past two weeks have made plain just how illusory and superficial the
differences between the respectable establishment and the Trumpists
really are. For at least the second time in as many years, the vast
majority of the conservative movement has abandoned all pretenses to
sobriety and civility on behalf of a tainted nominee. And it cannot be
said now, as it was in November, 2016, that the man in question is the
best or only option for those committed to conservative policy
objectives. Backing Brett Kavanaugh is a choice conservatives have made
over viable alternatives—qualified conservative candidates who could
be spirited through the nomination process before November’s elections
or in the lame-duck session by a Republican Senate that has already
proved itself capable of sidestepping the required procedural hurdles.
They have chosen this course because the Kavanaugh nomination has
presented the movement with a golden opportunity to accomplish two
things more valuable, evidently, than merely placing another
conservative on the court: standing against the new culture of
accountability for sexual abuse and, at least as important, thumbing
their noses at an angry and despairing Democratic Party. ----------

Kavanaugh, instead of being an impartial judicial, is so far right wing
that one day he's going to cut off his left arm out of spite.