July 13, 2018
The good folks at Veritaspac echo my thinking on the nomination of judge Brett Kavanagh to the Supreme Court.
From the article: "While we have expressed concern over Kavanaugh’s connections to W Bush and especially Justice Kennedy, actually W’s picks on balance were not bad, just not great – of the sitting justices, W picked Alito (great) and, meh Roberts. Dad picked Thomas, but also Souter. Reagan gave us Kennedy, Scalia and O’Connor (he tried to give us Bork).
But now the Quad City Times issues its opinion that Kavanaugh SHOULD be confirmed. The problem we have with the QCT is that they uncharacteristically used sound reasoning about the process, even calling Democrats hypocrites. They actually wrote:
Donald Trump is president. Republicans own the U.S. Senate. And Judge Brett Kavanaugh is qualified.
Kavanaugh will be confirmed, and he should be.
We don’t think they would do that for a more conservative jurist with comparable credentials. It worries us that they probably feel he is the best "they†can get. But then we do want to see a confirmation, but just not any confirmation, not another Kennedy (I lean to thinking Kavanaugh is somewhat to the right of Kennedy, and that Kavanaugh is not all positioning / climbing/ ambition). But as a member of SCOTUS his true head gets to come out. That is the anxiety not alleviated as yet (never to be eliminated)."
End excerpt.
I agree; we must be cautiously optimistic but bear in mind that we may well be getting rolled. While the Democrats must scream and howl for their base, the media is uncharacteristically fatalistic about this. It may be they figure it's the best they can get, or it may be they know something we don't. I am unwilling to take the word of the Federalist Society as gospel in this instance and I wish the people on our side wouldn't do that either. We have brains, and are supposed to be the ones with independent thought. There are disturbing signs.
But there are good ones as well.
I rather suspect he will be in the Kennedy mold, perhaps not the worst thing but clearly not a move to the right - something we desperately need. If we had someone better than Mitch McConnell heading up the Senate we would have a chance at someone better. But Trump needs to nail this down now in case he loses the Senate in the fall, and he has to kiss the ring of the RINO king.
I rather suspect we've just made a lateral move.
As to Kavanaughs devotion to the original intent of the Constitution, this other post at Veritas Pac - a quote from a commenter at Red State, says a lot:
"Kavanaugh ruled on the Obamacare case before it went to Roberts and the Supreme Court. I think he and Roberts both thought the individual mandate was unconstitutional. They both punted on striking it down, but they punted in different ways. Kavanaugh punted by arguing that the court did not yet have jurisdiction to hear the case because the penalty was a "tax†that had not yet been paid, an argument conservatives on the Supreme Court disagreed with. His reasoning tries to be too clever by half, but it makes more sense from the perspective of his political self interest. If Kavanaugh had written an opinion upholding Obamacare, that would jeopardize his chances of being nominated to the Supreme Court. On the other hand if Kavanaugh had written an opinion arguing that the individual mandate was unconstitutional, he would be very unlikely to be confirmed if Democrats controlled the Senate. Recall that Democrats controlled the Senate in 2011 when Kavanaugh heard the case"
End quote.
I enjoy gambling as much as the next man, but not with our future. This guy is a big risk, if you ask me.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
08:21 AM
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