The bruising battle
Due process, qualification and listening survive
What began as a normal Supreme Court nomination, of a supremely qualified, if “originalist,” candidate, became a circus, an exercise in character assassination, another chapter in our political civil wars and a further erosion of our democratic institutions, specifically the Supreme Court and the Senate.
Is this latest national nightmare really over? And did we learn anything? The answers are far from clear. But, if we are to recover our civility and underlying national unity, the nation needs to return to first principles.
Due process of law — the presumption of innocence, not guilt, and the right to face one’s accuser and invoke cross-examination is a first principle. Justice is evidentiary, not poetic. The notion that justice is “the cool virtue,” and based on reason not emotion, evidence not empathy, detachment, not personal gut reaction, is a first principle.
That tradition of justice must trump passion and politics, and prevail.
Fair play, and not ideology, is what we are about in the United States of America.
Were there any heroes in the melodrama?
Well, yes. Susan Collins and Jeff Flake stood out as senators who struggled to be fair and see both sides.
Lindsey Graham stood out as a man who cared about fair play.
Joe Manchin stood out as a man who listened and respected the voters of his state. Brett Kavanaugh may not have been the senator’s choice for the Supreme Court, but he was the choice of the president West Virginians voted for overwhelmingly.
A leader owes the people he represents his best judgment. He, or she, must be willing to risk rejection to tell them things they may not want to hear. Susan Collins gave us a profile in courage. Pandering is not leadership.
But a leader also must listen to the people, and respect them. Condescension is not leadership either.
In the end, listening mattered for some senators, and qualification, which used to be all that mattered in Supreme Court nominations, did too.
In the end, the value of due process was reasserted.
And that is a comfort, if a somewhat cold one, given the bruising nature of this battle, and the deepening divisions among Americans.
Listening, qualification and due process — these values did not exactly triumph, but they did survive.
But what of Justice Kavanaugh now? Will he be an originalist — reading law, not making new law? This is easier said than done. Has he been radicalized, and perhaps embittered, by what he has been through? Supreme Court nominees go into service in the confirmation process and, to a degree, battle. But Justice Kavanaugh has been through hand-tohand combat — like a veteran who has been on the front lines of war versus one who served on the homefront. He is a man who may have his own version of post-traumatic stress. This is also true of course, after the media circus, of his primary accuser Christine Ford. She has now been twice-used and traumatized.
The judge and his accusers all seem diminished by the last few weeks. Our politics is further diminished.
The Kavanaugh battle is now over and a few small moments of decency occurred. But the current respite seems merely a pause in the endless culture wars and tribal conflicts that are now our politics.