When President George Washington named John Jay as the first chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, he could never have imagined the gauntlet future nominees would face. Almost 230 years later, court appointees endure fierce partisan attacks and personal vilification.
Once presidential nominees to the nation's highest court were treated with polite deference. Those days disappeared during the presidency of Richard Nixon when two appointees were rejected in votes by the Senate in 1969 and 1970. That had not happened since 1930 under President Hoover.
While some nominees have voluntarily withdrawn their names in the past, only a dozen nominees in two centuries have been voted down by the Senate. While scrutiny of any Supreme Court appointment is part of the Senate's role, it has evolved into political theater unfitting of the office.
As evidence, the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy touched off a firestorm of opposition before his replacement was even named. When President Trump tapped Brett Kavanaugh, a respected judge on the Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, the verbal knifing began.
It is an omen that his confirmation hearings will feature political teeth gnashing instead of serious judicial inquiry.
A powerful Political Action Committee (PAC) funded by George Soros has already begun digging into Kavanaugh's background. The American Bridge 21st Century, founded in 2012, specializes in opposition research, a polite term for trolling for dirt on those the PAC deems its enemies.
In fact, the group has made no pretense that it is less interested in combing through Judge Kavanaugh's legal scholarship than it is in uncovering details of his personal life or views on political and religious issues. The latter may garner the spotlight since the nominee is a practicing Catholic.
The nation was treated to a precursor of what Kavanaugh likely will encounter when President Trump nominated Notre Dame University professor Amy Coney Barrett to an appeals court. Led by California's Senator Dianne Feinstein, the hearings denigrated into a religious inquisition.
The senator delved deeply into how Barrett's faith might influence her rulings, suggesting she wore her Catholicism too "loudly." This represented the worst kind of intolerance and bigotry. Expect more of the same when Kavanaugh is grilled by Democrats during the confirmation hearings.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has already signaled that "women's health care" will be a central issue. His choice of words is political code for abortion. Democrats will hammer that theme to raise the specter that Roe vs. Wade will be overturned if a Catholic justice is confirmed.
(Note to Liberals: A 2017 Pew Research poll of adults nationwide found 57 percent support abortion in all or most cases. Among Catholics surveyed, 53 percent held the same position. That means Catholics or no more likely to oppose abortion than any other adult.)
This red herring survives despite the fact there has never been a direct legal challenge to the 1973 Supreme Court decision that ruled unconstitutional a state law banning abortion to save the life of a mother. The ruling has stood for 45 years. In the interim, there have been 60 million U.S. abortions.
The other issue likely to be front and center is the #MeToo movement. In today's hyper-charged atmosphere any whiff of sexual impropriety is enough to destroy a public figure. A left-wing outfit Ultraviolet has made its mission to sabotage the nomination with scurrilous sexual accusations.
Ultraviolet is shopping a six-page memo to senators and the media insinuating Kavanaugh knew about sexual harassment accusations against a federal judge and failed to act. The sleazy dossier offers no incriminating evidence to back its claims against Kavanaugh, who clerked for the judge.
It matters little the alleged incident happened 25 years ago and there has never been a hint of impropriety on Kavanaugh's part. It also is no coincidence that Ultraviolet has links to MoveOn.org, another activist group that enjoys generous financial support from the irascible Soros.
Over the next month, expect activists armed with war chests to nitpick every email, memo and private utterance of Judge Kavanaugh to find a smoking gun. The ruthless efforts will yield no real proof but insidious innuendos. Thus the hearings likely will be uncivil and uninformative.
Kavanaugh has a 12-year record on the court of appeals. There are more than 300 of his cases that provide a window into his views on the Constitution as well as insights into his integrity, knowledge of the law and judicial competence. His judicial record should determine his fate, but it won't.
This is Washington and nothing inspires political grandstanding and personal bullying like hearings for a Supreme Court nominee. Ultimately, Kavanaugh will be approved but not until senators have shredded every last remnant of their already tattered cloak of dignity.
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