End of the News of the Day

Instead of asking what you are, ask what you believe in and then support those who promote it. Kindness, reason, civility, human rights, rule of law. I thought those were "conservative" but now conservs repudiate. Maybe we need new terms

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) September 28, 2018

Stipulated:  Brett Kavanaugh is a liar.*

“I watched the whole hearing. A number of my Yale colleagues and I were extremely disappointed in Brett Kavanaugh’s characterization of himself and the way that he evaded his excessive drinking questions,” [Kavanaugh Yale classmate Lynne] Brookes said. “There is no doubt in my mind that while at Yale, he was a big partier, often drank to excess. There had to be a number of nights where he does not remember.”

She added, “There were a lot of emails and a lot of texts flying around about how he was lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee today.”

And this is going to get worse before it gets better:  during a break in the hearing this morning, NPR reporters filled the dead air with discussion of the committee's work, and one reporter opined that if the Democrats retook the Senate, Trump would never get another Supreme Court justice approved.  "For two years?," Nina Totenberg asked, incredulity in her voice.  The example of the late Sen. McCain was cited, who said before the last Presidential election that if Clinton won, she'd never get a Supreme Court appointment through a GOP Senate.

And it may, very reasonably, get worse:

This will not end if Kavanaugh confirmed. The new congress will call and compel testimony from other witnesses. A Dem Congress could well vote to impeach. Bar complaints will be lodged vs. him. The next D president will expand the court. Kavanaugh willing to burn it all down.

— Jennifer Rubin (@JRubinBlogger) September 27, 2018

There could still be an investigation out of Maryland, which would be an interesting problem for a sitting Justice.  And Rubin is right:  a Democratic Congress could certainly investigate and impeach Kavanaugh if, for no other reason, than his numerous lies in his testimony.  There is also the issue of expanding the Court.  Are these things right, or wrong?  Well, the nominee showed absolutely no judicial temperament today:

Kav's furious hyper-partisan airing of anti-Democratic grievance amounts to a confession of his inability to approach cases without deeply emotional partisan bias.

— Will Wilkinson 🌐 (@willwilkinson) September 27, 2018

Imagine any other judicial nominee getting into a shouting match with Amy Klobuchar and not being shown the door instanter, especially if the Senator was a Republican and the nominee from a Democratic president.  It is not the Democrats, in Kavanaugh's poor phrasing of the adage, who will reap the whirlwind from this nomination:  it is the GOP.  Tom Cotton, doing his best Lindsay Graham imitation, noted:

“Women give birth to boys as well, and they worry as much about false accusations or show trials like the Democrats put on as they worry about the very serious crime of sexual assault,” Cotton said after taking a swipe at the press, calling a female reporter “the media wing of the Democratic Party” for asking about potential political fallout for the GOP if they confirm Kavanaugh.

I'm not sure how much both-siderism that comment, or Graham's, will hold, especially considering the alternative point of view:

“One saw a flash in the exchange with Klobuchar the same sense of entitlement, cruelty and lack of simple decency that Christine Blasey Ford allegedly experienced way back when, the memory seared in her brain of two obnoxious teens laughing at her ordeal.” https://t.co/xG2HdSg8mZ

— Jim Goldgeier (@JimGoldgeier) September 28, 2018

After all, this is the behavior Sen. Cotton is overlooking:

“First, I thought he had a tantrum and showed that he doesn’t have the temperament to be a Supreme Court justice,” [former federal prosecutor Cynthia] Alksne concluded. “And he also showed that his — he can be an angry and belligerent person and it just felt like, ‘oh, that is what he’s like when he’s angry and belligerent when he’s drunk.'”

“Can you imagine if a woman came into the Senate chamber and screamed and hollered at senators like that and interrupted them and was that rude?” she wondered.

“She’d be taken out in a straight jacket, because it is Judge Kavanaugh, he got away with it,” she noted. “I thought it was shocking.”

This is what Kavanaugh is like when he's drunk, or when he doesn't get his way, or when he's challenged; not what is usually considered a "judicial temperament."  Imagine if he'd simply accepted that these stories, while he denied them, indicated pain in others he was sorry he might have caused, or that they had suffered.  Imagine empathy and sympathy replacing entitlement and "lack of simple decency."  Imagine a wholly different nominee, because that person clearly would not be Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh is what happens when people are rewarded for privilege and told they succeeded in a meritocracy. He performed terribly today, revealed himself to be a rambling, angry, self-pitying bully who really just isn't that good a thinker.

— Dr Elizabeth Sacha Baroness Cohen (@alixabeth) September 27, 2018

John King said it best:  "“Brett Kavanaugh went full Trump today."  Yeah, pretty damned much.

P.S.  On the whole "ambush/bushwhacked/waited-too-long" thing.  Please let it finally be buried.  Had this all come out two months ago, it would now be dismissed as "old news" and "already talked about (if no more investigated than now)".  It's bullshit served on a platter to make it look edible.  Send it back, it's not even half-baked.

*As casually as another person says "Hello":

“I only have a few seconds left and I’ll just ask you a direct question: did you watch Dr. Ford’s testimony?” [Sen. Kamala ] Harris asked.

“I did not,” he acknowledged. “I planned to, but I did not, I was preparing mine.”

There may be added significance to the question by Harris, a veteran prosecutor who served as Attorney General of California and District Attorney of San Francisco.

Prior to Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony, the Wall Street Journal published a story that contradicts Judge Kavanaugh’s testimony later in the day.

“Among those watching Dr. Ford’s testimony was Judge Kavanaugh, a committee aide said, from a monitor in another room in the Dirksen Senate Building, where he awaits the opportunity to tell his side of the story later today,” The Journal reported.

Judge Kavanaugh had better pray the Democrats don't take the Senate; whether he is on the high court or keeps his current sinecure, they are certain to come after him.