We can do better than this

When Christine Blasey Ford's accusations against Brett Kavanaugh came to light earlier this month, I had some reservations. 

I had, and have, plenty of reasons to oppose Kavanaugh's confirmation, aside from his past sexual conduct.  But I questioned whether a drunken incident by a teenager -- regardless of its severe impact on his victim -- disqualified him as a 53-year-old experienced appellate judge from appointment to the Supreme Court. 

I still have reservations on this point, especially if as originally appeared there had been no subsequent complaints against him, and in light of his twelve years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit -- a court immediately below the Supreme Court.  What relevance, I thought and still wonder, does an incident occurring while he was in high school have on his ability to serve on the Supreme Court?

And if it does suggest that he is not qualified to serve on the Supreme Court, isn't he also equally disqualified from service on the Court of Appeals?  Should he be removed from his present life-tenured office, by impeachment or other means?

Putting aside these reservations, I now discern two excellent reasons why Judge Kavanaugh should not be confirmed.

First, assuming we believe Ms. Ford's testimony -- which most people, including the President, found highly credible, and which the on-going FBI investigation may confirm -- then Kavanaugh has been lying repeatedly, first to the press and then under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.  He hasn't said that "maybe it happened, but if so I was so drunk that I can't remember it."  He has testified that he has 100 percent certainty that the sexual assault never occurred -- or at least that if it occurred, he wasn't the assaillant. 

Brett Kavanaugh is a highly experienced judge.  He understands perjury, and he understands what he was saying and how he said it.

Second, Kavanaugh disqualified himself, in my eyes, by his performance before the Senate committee.  He ranted and raved, he complained about a Democratic conspiracy against him, he complained about a conspiracy by the Clintons against him.  In effect, he made it clear that he was a Republican being appointed as a Republican to do a Republican's job on the Court, and that he felt he was being "persecuted" by Ms. Ford and the Democrats for that reason.

In this respect, I'm willing to take him at his word.  He hasn't been, and he knows he hasn't been, appointed because of his legal scholarship -- although his credentials are certainly adequate.  He has been appointed because the President feels assured that he has made up his mind in advance how he will rule on every matter that comes before him that would be of any importance to President Trump.

When I was a student, we studied the opinions of various Supreme Court justices throughout history, attempting to ascertain the judicial philosophy that each brought to the Court.  More and more, no one cares about judicial philosophy; we care only about political party, or at least political leanings.  But no appointee to the Court in my memory has been as blatant in aligning himself with one political party against the other during the very bipartisan hearings that were considering his or her qualifications.

Kavanaugh's testimony has made it very clear that his confirmation would serve as an assault on the dignity of the Court, its non-partisanship, and its independence as the third branch of government.

And as a corollary to this objection, I've never seen an appointee to the Court behave with such a total lack of judicial restraint and demeanor as Kavanaugh displayed -- before the Committee and under the eyes of a national television audience -- during his opening statement.  Kavanaugh appealed to the Republican base and to the Senators beholden to that base, in the angry and hysterical manner that they so dearly love to hear, begging for their support in terms and tone that mimicked his mentor -- Donald Trump.

For all these reasons, I see no justification for confirming the appointment of what would be, in effect, a Justice Donald Trump II to the Supreme Court.