Further reading: Brett Kavanaugh is patient zero

This is perhaps no surprise. Under conditions of severe political stress, nominations for appointments to the Supreme Court will be a battleground. When the parties compete in an all-out, zero-sum contest for control of the legislative and executive branches, they will not neglect to expand the fight to a court of judges serving for life that often—and all too often—steps in to resolve sharply contested political, social, and cultural issues. When Senator Kamala Harris pressed Kavanaugh on Thursday on why he was the victim of a left-wing conspiracy, but not Neil Gorsuch before him, she attempted to highlight the obvious point that Gorsuch did not face allegations like those facing the current nominee. But it is also true that Gorsuch was nominated to succeed Scalia, and Kavanaugh to replace Anthony Kennedy.

These realities do not excuse the Senate from a rigorous review of allegations that bear on character and temperament. In the confirmation process involving Justice Clarence Thomas, the FBI was promptly tasked with supplementing its background investigation after Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment surfaced. The hearings that were then scheduled to hear public testimony lasted three days, and multiple witnesses other than Hill and Thomas appeared. The last session ended at two in the morning.

Yet the Senate majority controlling the Kavanaugh nomination process was ready to dispense altogether with a supplemental background inquiry in responding to Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations. It responded with a one-day hearing notable for unique features, including a severely truncated witness list, confined to Ford and Kavanaugh, and members limited to five minutes of questioning, which rendered impossible any coherent factual development.

Then the last part of the hearing was devoted entirely to a fairly unabashed political appeal to Republicans to rally around their nominee. This portion, dominated by majority-member oratory, tied up neatly with Kavanaugh’s opening statement. He set the stage for a political argument with his reference to Democratic conspiracy, including a motivation to avenge the Clintons, and Republicans in the second half put a sharp exclamatory point on his position.

Read Eliot Cohen on the Republican party’s abandonment of conservativism

The suggestion in nomination battles that one side or the other, or both, are playing politics is not unusual. But the one-day hearing was fundamentally organized around two objectives: obstructing any opportunity for bona fide fact-finding and an explicit appeal for a resolution dictated by partisan affiliation. This is new.

Only when its hand was forced by the need for a close vote to answer concerns expressed by Senators Flake, Collins, Manchin, and Murkowski has the Republican leadership in the Kavanaugh process acquiesced in the 11th hour in a further inquiry limited in time and scope. But it did so only after successfully persuading Republican committee members to vote as a bloc to move the nomination to the floor. It did not commit to additional public hearings. There will be none.