U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh are over. They will go down in history as the most chaotic, disruptive, circus-like, non-substantive confirmation hearings in history. So far.
We learned very little about the nominee that we did not know before. He gave the expected (and welcome) measured answers to questions he could ethically answer, and declined (as all nominees) do to opine on issues that might come before him as a justice. He showed remarkable calm in the face of almost unprecedented slander and abuse.
We know that he served for 12 years with distinction on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and is highly regarded by appellate lawyers across the political spectrum. He got the American Bar Association’s highest rating. On the first day of the hearings, he was introduced by Lisa Blatt, a former clerk of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and self-described liberal, feminist lawyer who has argued 35 cases before the Supreme Court — more than any other woman. She declares that Kavanaugh is unquestionably well-qualified, brilliant, has integrity and is within the mainstream of legal thought and that the Senate should confirm him. Donald Verrilli, President Barack Obama’s solicitor general, called Kavanaugh a distinguished jurist by any measure. Among nonpolitical lawyers and court observers, those assessments are typical.
On a court with a strong Democrat-appointed majority, he voted with the majority in about 97 percent of the cases. Harvard Law School regularly invites him to teach seminars on separation of powers, judicial process, and other issues, and students of every political stripe appreciate his candor, his depth of analysis, and his balance.
The opposition to Kavanaugh is actually not about him, but about the man who nominated him, Donald Trump. Democratic senators — especially those running for president or for re-election in liberal states — want to show their political base that they are part of the resistance to everything Trump stands for. The irony is that Kavanaugh is a remarkably un-Trumpian nominee.
Whereas Trump is populist, intentionally divisive, anti-establishment, immoderate, and contemptuous of many of traditional norms of comity and civility, Kavanaugh is a…
