Nills Gilman, in The American Interest:
I went into this past Thursday’s hearing truly attempting an open mind. I expected Professor Blasey Ford to perform as she did—in a manner that induced empathy if not, of course, providing definitive proof of what may have occurred in that room in Maryland 36 summers ago. But what I had hoped Kavanaugh might have done would be to deliver opening remarks along these lines:
“Sexual assault is one of the worst crimes human beings can commit. It damages its victims and their families incalculably, sometimes for generations to come. I stand in solidarity with the #MeToo movement and its valiant effort to banish such behavior. What Ms. Blasey Ford says happened to her is horrifying, and whoever did this to her has no place on the federal bench, but more probably in jail. However, I truly believe this is a case of mistaken identity; not only do I have no recollection of such an event, but I find it inconceivable that I could have committed such an odious act.”
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But this was not the speech we got. Instead we were greeted by a man barely able to contain his emotions, claiming partisan victimhood, and all but explicitly vowing revenge. This show may have appealed to the Audience of One, but it was simply an unacceptable moral posture for anyone seeking a Supreme Court appointment, regardless of the underlying truth of the charges leveled against him. What Kavanaugh’s speech indicated—what it in fact performed—was a traducing of the moral values we expect a Supreme Court justice to embody: solemnity, equanimity, maturity, forbearance, and yes, sobriety (in the moral sense). Even if he was a man wronged, Kavanaugh’s conduct was, to use a moral concept often deployed in the military, “unbecoming” of a Supreme Court Justice. So forget about what may have happened 36 years ago: No one who behaves the way Kavanaugh did on that Thursday belongs on the Supreme Court.
This underscores the final, deepest issue: Kavanaugh’s apparent inability to recognize that the institutional integrity of the Supreme Court is bigger than justice for him as an individual. At the end of the day, like his fellow Republican partisans, Kavanaugh seems unable to see that his assassinated character, whether just or not, has disqualified him from the job; and that failure of recognition is itself disqualifying. This may seem like a Catch-22 for Kavanaugh himself, and it is. But the Court is bigger than the man, and everyone involved, if they care about the Court, should recognize this.
Grassroot influence in our country has eroded for decades, and if we all don’t get more involved and demand aggressive reforms to the influence of money in politics (campaign finance, lobbying, corporate welfare, etc.), we may stop functioning as a democracy (or democratic republic, if you will) and effectively be an oligarchy. This Supreme Court spat shows how corrupt the GOP has become, damn the consequences to the country at large. The Republican Party has thoroughly politicized the Court, undermining any trust we might have had in its ability to rule fairly. Any contentious rulings can now be written off by a majority of the country as simple partisan bias, where at least before there was a veneer of neutrality we could build a foundation of trust on.
From Zack Beauchamp, in Vox, “The Supreme Court’s Legitimacy Crisis is here”:
The Supreme Court’s legitimacy depends on most Americans viewing it as above the partisan fray, an institution whose decisions are driven by legal reasoning, not by the justices’ partisan leanings.
In confirming Kavanaugh, with a razor-thin partisan majority no less, the Republican Senate may well end up eroding that public faith. Kavanaugh’s fiery and nakedly partisan testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the September 27 hearing revealed a justice who was less an “impartial arbiter” of the law and more a partisan creature who would take his political grudges to the Supreme Court.
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His performance was so alarming that the American Bar Association, which had given him its stamp of approval, on Friday announced that it was reopening its evaluation of Kavanaugh in light of his “temperament.” Retired Justice John Paul Stevens was also taken aback, saying Kavanaugh’s performance revealed a “potential bias” that could be a problem. And more than 2,400 law professors signed a letter expressing their view that Kavanaugh “did not display the impartiality and judicial temperament” to sit on the Court.