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Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.

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The editorial board of the New York Times recently penned an editorial titled “Confirmed: Brett Kavanaugh Can’t Be Trusted.” If one wants to read this partisan piece of journalistic drivel, see here. Let me save you the trouble.

The article asserts that Kavanaugh is being “rammed through” the confirmation process. Trump announced and formally nominated him to succeed Anthony Kennedy on July 9th, 2018. Assuming a vote occurs sometime in the third week of September, that would be approximately 74 days between nomination and confirmation. According to an analysis by, ironically, the New York Times, the Senate has never taken more than 125 days to confirm a Supreme Court nominee and the average is considerably less than that. The 74 days is about average for the current members of the Court. For example, Gorsuch was confirmed 66 days after his nomination and Ginsburg only 62 days later after her nomination. The 74 days would be longer than even Breyer, Roberts and Sotomayor. Hence, nothing is being “rammed through.”

They then assert that the confirmation process is proceeding with “secrecy.” By this, one assumes they mean the Judiciary Committee did not comply with Democratic Party requests to turn over an unprecedented number of documents with the obvious intent to delay and obstruct. They re-litigate events from Kavanaugh’s 2006 confirmation hearing to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. These issues were discussed, questioned and answered- to the apparent satisfaction of the Judiciary Committee and the full Senate then- with 57 votes to confirm.

The smoking gun to the Times is a leaked e-mail chain discussing abortion and Roe v. Wade. In that chain, Kavanaugh says: “I am not sure that all legal scholars refer to Roe as the settled law of the land at the Supreme Court level since Court can always overrule its precedent, and three current Justices on the Court would do so.” Some facts for the Times to consider:

Not all legal scholars refer to Roe as settled law; The Supreme Court can and has overruled precedent, and; At the time, three Justices would have overruled Roe.

In short, Kavanaugh is being pilloried for speaking three (count ’em, three) truths.

This line is telling from the article:

He misstates facts under oath, and Republicans cover for him by making it hard, if not impossible, to get the documents proving it.

Misstating facts under oath is a serious charge. In essence, they are accusing Kavanaugh of committing perjury. More importantly, they miss an important point: perhaps there are no incriminating documents (where is Corey Booker when you need him). The day before the hearings began, some 42,000 documents were released to the Senate. This brought down the ire of the Democratic leadership. Left unmentioned in the article is that previous to this, the Senate received over 400,000 pages of documents concerning him. If you cannot find dirt in over 442,000 pages of documents, another million are not likely to do so either.

They claim he is following his own “cynical advice” to a court nominee in 2002:

She should not talk about her views on specific policy or legal issues…She should say that she has a commitment to follow Supreme Court precedent, that she understands and appreciates the role of a circuit judge, that she will adhere to statutory text, that she has no ideological agenda.

In short, she should do exactly what that icon of the Resistance, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, did. It’s not called the Ginsburg rule for nothing. Incidentally, again, Ginsburg: confirmed 62 days after her nomination!

But the last paragraph says it all:

But his ideological agenda is well known, which is precisely why he’s been on Republican Supreme Court shortlists for the last decade. That agenda includes, for starters, a well-established hostility to women’s reproductive rights and a stunningly expansive view of presidential power and impunity.

This whole line of argument has nothing to do with possible perjury, legal nuance, the number of documents, ramrodding a nomination, “cynical advice,” or alleged “secrecy” by Republicans. This has everything to do with “a well-established hostility to women’s reproductive rights.” Full stop. The part about presidential power is a sideshow. Democrats care little about presidential power when a Democrat occupies the White House.

For anyone who has watched any of these hearings, one thing is painfully obvious. They have been an embarrassment to the process. Whether it was Mazie Hirono’s bizarre line of questioning, Sheldon Whitehouse’s misspelled props, Kamala Harris trying to outdo Corey Booker, or Corey Booker’s fake Spartacus moment, it is a shame that these people dare call themselves “Senators.”

And for what did they belittle themselves? For the same reason as this editorial in the New York Times– their Leftist credibility. Brett Kavanaugh will be the next Associate Justice on the Supreme Court replacing Anthony Kennedy just as sure as the sun will rise in the east and set in the west tomorrow. It will not be because of secrecy or cynicism; it will be because he is qualified. The only thing “confirmed” by the New York Times editorial is the fact the New York Times is a joke of a newspaper and their editorial board falls somewhere near or beneath the nonsense, silliness and embarrassment of Corey Booker.