COLLINS’ ‘YES’ ALL BUT SEALS KAVANAUGH DEAL
The damage done will never be fully repaired
Soon, and very soon we all hope, the vicious inquisition of Brett Kavanaugh, so toxic in nature, so disingenuous in substance, will mercifully fade from the news as all compelling stories eventually do.
But the damage it will have inflicted on this decent family man will never be fully repaired, nor will the wounds he sustained ever fully heal.
He’s been mauled, plain and simple, and for what? For his understanding of the law? No. For his body of work as a jurist in lower courts? No. For his grasp of legal nuance? No.
Kavanaugh was ravaged by hacks who revile Donald Trump simply because he was Trump’s choice to replace the retiring Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court.
As Michael Corleone, Hollywood’s Godfather, would have put it, it was nothing personal, strictly business.
Oh, but it was unconscionably personal, and soon this candidate, originally emerging as a wholesome courtroom whiz who also coached his young daughters in basketball, found himself portrayed as a reprobate who tried to rape one young woman, exposed himself to others, drank himself into stupors that made him boorishly confrontational, while generally comporting himself like a jerk.
What was he supposed to do? What would you have done if you were similarly slandered by demagogic nitwits who regarded your disgrace as nothing more than collateral damage in their hellbent mission to thwart a duly elected president they despise?
So, pointing out he was speaking as a son, husband and dad, Kavanaugh snapped back at them, and they then had the audacity to scold him, wondering if he lacked judicial temperament.
The Greek philosopher Bion had it right: Young boys throw stones at frogs in jest, but the frogs don’t die in jest; they die in earnest.
So do hard-earned reputations when they’re unfairly attacked.
When he ran for president 30 years ago Michael Dukakis was asked by debate moderator Bernard Shaw whether he’d favor the death penalty if someone raped his wife. Dukakis calmly replied no, reminding Shaw he’d been an opponent of capital punishment all his life.
The Duke took a pounding for that passivity, just as Kavanaugh has been taking a pounding for showing a little gumption, in effect borrowing Peter Finch’s line from “Network”: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore!”
Good for him.
What is happening to America? Since when do we do business this way?
Is this the price a public servant must now expect to pay?
Little wonder we’re left with the morons who populate Congress today.
WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine declared yesterday she will vote today to confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination, all but ensuring that a deeply riven Senate will elevate the conservative jurist to the nation’s highest court despite allegations that he sexually assaulted women decades ago.
The dramatic Senate-floor announcement by perhaps the chamber’s most moderate Republican ended the suspense over a tortuous election-season battle that had left Kavanaugh’s fate in doubt for nearly a month after the first accusation against him. It assured a victory for President Trump’s quest to move the Supreme Court rightward, perhaps for decades, and a satisfying win for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and the GOP’s conservative base.
Moments after Collins finished talking, the only remaining undeclared lawmaker, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, said he, too, would vote “yes” in the showdown confirmation roll call expected this afternoon. Manchin, the only Democrat supporting Kavanaugh, faces a competitive re-election race next month in a state Trump carried in 2016
by 42 percentage points.
Support by Collins and Manchin gives Kavanaugh at least 51 votes in the 100-member Senate for an election-season victory against the backdrop conflict of the #MeToo movement and staunch conservative support for Trump. Both parties are hoping the bitter struggle will energize their most loyal voters to stream to the polls in less than five weeks, when GOP control of the House and perhaps the Senate is in play.
“We will be ill-served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be,” Collins said in remarks that stretched for more than 40 minutes but addressed the sexual-abuse allegations only near the end. “We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.”
Collins said Christine Blasey Ford’s dramatic testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee last week describing Kavanaugh’s alleged 1982 assault on her was “sincere, painful and compelling.” But Collins said witnesses Ford had identified who were interviewed by the FBI last week and included in a report the agency gave lawmakers had failed to corroborate Ford’s claims.
“I do not believe that those charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the court,” Collins said.
Manchin said in a written statement, “My heart goes out to anyone who has experienced any type of sexual assault in their life. However, based on all of the information I have available to me, including the recently completed FBI report, I have found Judge Kavanaugh to be a qualified jurist who will follow the Constitution and determine cases based on the legal findings before him.”
Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, a fellow moderate and a friend of Collins, is the only Republican who has indicated she will vote no. She told reporters yesterday that Kavanaugh is “a good man” but maybe “not the right man for the court at this time.”
Republicans hold a bare 5149 majority in the Senate.