The Most Important Thing To Know About Brett Kavanaugh

Finding it mind-boggling to watch academics and lawyers of varying flavor twitting nonsensical predictions about who would be named last night to fill the seat of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, I did something. I’m not exactly proud of it, as it was less than dignified, but I enjoy a good joke as much as the next guy, providing the next guy enjoys humor over a life of abject misery, but it turned out far funnier than I imagined. I twitted this:

My timeline blew up, with some getting the joke and others losing their minds. On the right, there were people thrilled at the prospect. On the left, there were people beyond outraged. The “tell” that it was a joke was the “new shoes,” since Pirro’s obsessed with shoes and it’s obviously impossible to tell, and irrelevant in any event. Watching the blithering idiots going nuts over the “new shoes” was my favorite part.* How they breathe remains a mystery.

But the point of the twit was that some people will believe anything. Granted, I’m a very credible person, but there was nothing in there about how I knew such a thing or what it meant. I gave people the rope. They hung themselves. Over and over and over. They did so not because of me, though I obviously am a gangsta, but because they no longer need any connection to reality to believe whatever it is they’re going to believe.

At 9:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, President Trump announced District of Columbia Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh would be the nominee for the Supreme Court. Even so, people kept retwitting my Pirro twit and replying to it. For people so deeply concerned, one might think they would realize that Pirro wasn’t the nominee after Judge Kavanaugh was named the nominee. Nope. Even as I type, people are still retwitting and replying. Sharp as knives.

The New York Times has an editorial about why the nomination of Kavanaugh is the end of times, not so much because of anything wrong with Judge Kavanaugh, but because reasons. Yale lawprof Akhil Reed Amar has an op-ed entitled “A Liberal’s Case For Brett Kavanaugh.”

Although Democrats are still fuming about Judge Garland’s failed nomination, the hard truth is that they control neither the presidency nor the Senate; they have limited options. Still, they could try to sour the hearings by attacking Judge Kavanaugh and looking to complicate the proceedings whenever possible.

This would be a mistake. Judge Kavanaugh is, again, a superb nominee. So I propose that the Democrats offer the following compromise: Each Senate Democrat will pledge either to vote yes for Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation — or, if voting no, to first publicly name at least two clearly better candidates whom a Republican president might realistically have nominated instead (not an easy task). In exchange for this act of good will, Democrats will insist that Judge Kavanaugh answer all fair questions at his confirmation hearing.

There is no serious argument that Judge Kavanaugh is unqualified for the position. That he’s not the judge whom a liberal president might have chosen isn’t a serious argument because a liberal president wasn’t elected. Nor is it a serious argument that his confirmation hearing will be conducted in good faith, as it will be a Kabuki theater as was Justice Gorsuch’s.

But serious people will realize all of this and, as they watch the senators on the judiciary committee speechify in lieu of questions and bemoan the potential fate of Roe v. Wade and Obergefell v. Hodges, they know the judge sitting before them, one they voted to confirm on the D.C. Circuit just as they were fully supportive of Justice Gorsuch’s confirmation to the Tenth Circuit, is the real deal.

Had Darth Cheeto nominated Jeanine Pirro, the nation would have blown up. She is not qualified, not even a little bit, and such an absurd nomination would have been more than anyone with a modicum of intelligence and integrity could take. But he didn’t. Even if some wag on twitter trolled the masses hungry to believe anything, whether to love or hate, or just to obsess about shoes because they didn’t get the joke.

Before anyone starts crying in their green tea, remember that even Darth Scalia, who brought such gems to his decision-making as the “new professionalism” of police, also brought back the Confrontation Clause in Crawford. The empathetic Latina was a major hump when she sat on the Second Circuit, rarely seeing a criminal defendant who didn’t deserve his sentence of life plus cancer. And Ike’s biggest regret was nominating Earl Warren as Chief Justice. You never know.

The one, the only, thing you need to know is that Brett Kavanaugh will, and should, be confirmed by the Senate.** Until he’s confirmed, people will say all manner of terrible things about him, all of which will be nonsense designed to taint a judge to compensate for the fact that he was chosen by Trump rather than Hillary. No matter how much you believe he’s going to end life as we know it, he’s not. He is not evil. He is not unqualified. He is not the monster he will be made out to be by people whose lies you prefer to believe.

And if that doesn’t bring you comfort, then consider that Trump didn’t do the most insanely absurd and horrifying thing he could have done, nominate Jeanine Pirro in her new shoes.

*If you have absolutely nothing useful to do today, check out the responses to the twit. If ever there was proof of no intelligent life on earth, this was it.

**Yes, his fellow D.C. Circuit judge Merrick Garland should have as well, and that the Republican gamesmanship precluded his getting a hearing was a disgrace. But they pulled it off, and it’s done.

45 thoughts on “The Most Important Thing To Know About Brett Kavanaugh

  1. Jake

    “Before anyone starts crying in their green tea…”

    *Cough.* It’s kombucha the kids are all drinking these days.

  2. Skink

    We should just stop this nonsense and make it so the supreme court judges are elected. We elect senators and republicans. Hell, we even made it so we elect presidents. That was right after the civil war, so there’s a precedent for doing it. If we elect those judges, we get a say in how they think and what they say. For the really important stuff, like cases about birds, we could all vote to decide who wins. If voting is good enough for other governments, it’s good for the judges. The president shouldn’t get to decide. He isn’t even a judge! What does he know about judges. We live in a democracy. That means we get to decide. So I say we decide who gets to be a judge on the supreme court.

    1. SHG Post author

      If you’re going to conceal the type of shoes you’re wearing, then you don’t deserve a vote.

      1. Skink

        Stylish leather sneakers, cutoffs and a tank top. I was gonna wear the hat, but Rich wouldn’t give it up.

        null

  3. Jim Ryan

    ** – the “new shoes” was my favorite part.* How they breathe remains a mystery. – **
    Answer: Velcro!
    Otherwise their inability to tie shoe laces would lead to tripping over the laces and their inevitable demise.

  4. Wrongway

    Judge Jeanine always reminds me of Monty Python.. maybe it’s her deep voice or that I never get to see her shoes… oh & by the way, with jokes like that, you should be the skipper of a ‘fishing boat’ …
    I mean I get why this is a big deal in some circles, but you’re right in “most” cases they decide it’s not gonna mean diddly to the general public.. (who, on tape, were calling them names days before the announcement was made..). I don’t see Roe v Wade getting overturned, nor the Heller decision. So, not much is gonna change anytime soon..
    But!, this court has made Horrible decisions in the past that have affected day-to-day life.. so yeah in a weird way I get all of the hand wringing.
    My only concern, is that he’s being touted as a ‘conservative with close ties to the Bush Admin’.. yeah well so what.. I could give a shit if he’s an Episcopalian with close ties to Brainiac from the Planet Smartron 5.. as long as he does what I personally think his job is. And that’s to look at the case before him. And then apply it to the constitution. And not bow to any pressure from anyone.
    Now no one does this because we each have a bias, but one can have a “Utopian Vision” of a Judge.

  5. Dave

    The whole thing is just a bunch of Kabuki theater now, especially with a GOP pick. They pre-vet them. You don’t get on that list of Federalist Society judicial picks unless you are a guaranteed vote against Roe, etc. Everyone with half an ounce of brain knows that is true. Really, that is the whole point of the list. So everyone on the right knows in advance that a pick from that list is a safe bet for every right-wing wet dream for the court. And they will pick them nice and young, too.

    The left does not have such a list. And then they try to pick “moderates” and put people in their 60s up. They just don’t have the drive behind the whole thing like the GOP has for the past 40 years. The net result has been a right-ward drift, which will be rather complete once Kavanaugh is confirmed.

    But all of this is just noise because the GOP has 51 votes, so Kavanaugh will be confirmed and there is absolutely nothing the Democratic Party can do to stop it or even slow it down. The time for that was in 2014, and 2016 in the Senate and Presidential elections.

    1. SHG Post author

      You have very deep insight into how the Supreme Court selection process works. Almost twitter-level deep.

      1. Dave

        Are you suggesting I should join twitter? Never! I’ll never join the dark side!

        The GOP swore they would never have another Souter – that was the entire impetus for the creation of their list of approved judicial candidates. One would have to be terribly naive to think that a candidate could get on that list without certain guarantees behind closed doors. You would either have to think that the people who made the list are lying about why they made it, or that they are terribly incompetent at vetting the list. I think this is where I would have to tell you you need to sit down, there is something I need to tell you, and it is going to make you sad.

        1. SHG Post author

          Do you possibly think I don’t absolutely believe that you know how those candidates cut deals behind closed doors, where you’ve never been except in your fertile imagination? Why would I possibly doubt you knowing the deepest, darkest, most conspiratorial secrets?

          No one doubts they’re pointedly asked myriad questions about what they’ll do as justice, but do you think they swear to reverse Roe v. Wade?

          1. Dave

            It isn’t a deep, dark conspiracy to conclude that when someone forms an organization to make a list with a specific purpose to then believe them when they publicly say what the purpose is. It isn’t like the GOP has made this a secret. Hell, they used it to gather support for Trump to get elected – hold your nose, and vote for this cretin because the only thing that matters is he will appoint the right judges (i.e. the judges from this list) for SCOTUS. This is all public information. No twitter required.

            Would you be terribly surprised, when [insert your least favorite SJW here] formed an organization that then made “approved” lists of judicial appointments, that it turned out that everyone on that list was an avowed SJW, committed to the SJW agenda as a judge? When someone publicly declares they are doing something to advance a particular agenda, an agenda that matches their own, I don’t think it is a stretch to, you know, believe them.

            Really, I think you would have to believe in some sort of dark conspiracy by someone to pretend to be anti-Roe to get on that list with the Federalist Society to be able to believe that it isn’t a fairly foregone conclusion that criteria to expect from the people on that list. And yes, sure, people who get lifetime appointments can change over time… but then concerns with that are why the list was made in the first place … they wanted to find people least likely for that to happen.

            Anyway, sorry for the spilled text. I am still annoyed by the whole Garland thing. Though I agree with you that he was also not exactly a very progressive choice when it came to criminal issues, he was still Obama’s choice and he should have gotten a hearing.

            1. SHG Post author

              Dave. You know that moment where someone a somewhat obvious, if exaggerated, observation is made, and then remade, and then remade again, but this time at far greater length, become tedious and disinteresting in the extreme? We got your point with the first comment. It’s fault wasn’t the conservatives seek justices who reflect their ideology and philosophy. Of course they do.

              But you want too far as if it’s a conspiracy. And now that you’ve beaten it to death and gotten nowhere, give it a rest. More words don’t make it more real, just longer and a greater waste of my bandwidth. Why do you hate my bandwidth?

            2. Skink

              There are more than 2500 federal cases citing Roe. Excepting the first few years, guess what those cases are not about. That’s right, they’re not abortion cases. They’re about privacy rights, mixed in with some criminal cases and procedural stuff. Can you guess what happens if that case is overturned? If so, then maybe you’ll see why you’re barking up the wrong tree.

              Otherwise, when driving a country road, do you sometimes get the urge for ice cream? I think ice cream is really good, especially when it’s really made with cream. That other stuff is bad. I hope you don’t get a longing for that.

    2. Dan

      “And then they try to pick “moderates” and put people in their 60s up.”

      Sotomayor was 55 when nominated. Kagan was 49. Even Ginsburg was just 60. Granted, Garland was over 60, but not by much.

      “They just don’t have the drive behind the whole thing like the GOP has for the past 40 years.”

      If the GOP has been doing this for the past 40 years, they’ve been failing spectacularly at it for most of that time. But yes, since the left have been trying their damnedest to turn the courts into a policy-making branch, the right have been fighting back.

      1. Dave

        Yes, Ginsburg was 60. Garland was over 60. When was the last time a Republican nominated someone to SCOTUS who was 60+? There are only four Dems on the court now (though there should have been five). Of that five, 40% were 60 or over at nomination. I did not mean to say every nomination was over 60, but that it was dumb that ANY of them were. And yes, I am unapologetically liberal as hell, though I think SJWs and their ilk are fucked in the head.

        1. SHG Post author

          If your arg is that Dems make foolish choices, are you looking for disagreement or confirmation?

        2. Dan

          So of the four who are actually on the court (rather than the five you think should be), one was 60 years old when nominated (and she’s been there 25 years). The three others were all considerably younger (Breyer was 56, and the average of the four is 55). Kavanaugh is older than Kagan was when nominated, and only slightly younger than Sotomayor or Breyer. Of the others, Roberts was 50, Thomas was 43, Alito was 56, Gorsuch was 49, and Kennedy was 51. What does this show? On average, both Republican and Democrat presidents tend to nominate candidates in or around their 50s.

          Yes, Garland was an outlier. Obama apparently thought that an older nominee would be more readily confirmed, since his phone and his pen couldn’t get a justice onto the Court by themselves. He was mistaken.

  6. Ray

    Now you’ve done it. You went and put ideas in Darth Cheato’s big head. Judge Jeannine may not become a Supreme Court Justice, but whats to stop the Orange One from putting her on the Second Circuit.

    1. SHG Post author

      Even a Republican majority in the Senate won’t be able to get past Pirro’s sleeping with the enemy.

  7. B. McLeod

    The political battle lines were drawn and multi-million dollar sums committed, days before the identity of the nominee was even known. Such are our times, and such are the people who erroneously fancy themselves “leaders” in our society.

      1. B. McLeod

        At the ABA Journal website, the character assassination campaign, based on alleged statements from anonymous sources, has already begun.

          1. B. McLeod

            As the organization’s financial circumstances deteriorate, they seem increasingly desperate to strike whatever blow they can for the great crusade, before they finally slip beneath the waves.

    1. Pseudonymouskid

      Comrade, you’re so close, but still need another step. We’ll talk about it at the next marxist book club meeting. If the self-styled “leaders” aren’t in charge, then who is? Qui bono? A spoonful of sugar helps the reeducation go down, so cookies will be served. See you there.

  8. Future Prizefighting Felon*

    Are you saying Kavanaugh singled-handedly overturned Roe v Wade and the GCA of 1934 by merely accepting the nomination?

    Now I can realize my American dream of arming un-aborted toddlers with fully automatic, .88 Magnum, diaper Derringers. There are more than several vacant retail spaces across from the 34 PCT, thanks to the Progressives Fight for $15. The shingle will read “Bullets, Bourbon and Buttpaste”.

    Kavanaugh and Machinegun Machado approve of this music video.

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