I spent last weekend with my wife in, of all places, Louisville, Kentucky--in other words, in Mitch McCONnell's home state. Louisville is a relative island of blue in a sea of Bluegrass red, so I can't say I picked up anything from the locals about the nature of their support for the Senate majority leader. However, and despite the fact that we had a good time on our trip, McCONnell and his fellow caucus members still managed to put a damper on our mood, as well as that of millions of Americans (and women in particular). They did this, of course, by ramming through a vote to put Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, by a margin of 50-48--the lowest number of votes for a Supreme Court nominee in the nation's history.
McCONnell and his Senate cronies, of course, don't give a damn about making this kind of history. Nor do they care about the sham FBI investigation of Kavanaugh requested by the aptly-named Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona. This, of course, would be the investigation that was arbitrarily limited in scope by T**** (or T$$$$, if you will; works just as well), to make sure that nothing was discovered, and in which any number of witnesses who volunteered to cooperate were without exception ignored. The investigation, in other words, that accomplished nothing except formalizing the politicization of the FBI that began almost the moment that T$$$$ took office.
Nor did McCONnell and his cronies care about the systematic trashing that they, and their media allies, did not only of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the principal accuser against Kavanaugh, but other women who came forward to share their knowledge of Kavanaugh's abusive behavior. All of these women were systematically slandered or libeled, and, with the exception of the sham FBI investigation previously mentioned, none of their accusations were investigated in any way, or treated with the seriousness that they deserved in connection with the potential (now actual) lifetime appointment of Kavanaugh to the highest court in the land.
If anything, the Republican caucus members and their fellow-travelers on Fox News and the Internet felt obliged to show blatant, over-the-top disrespect for the accusers in a way that not only demeaned them individually, but also demeaned them as women as well (and thereby demean all women). Typical of this sort of verbal assault was the suggestion by Senator Lindsey Graham that Dr. Ford was little more than the lowest form of prostitute, looking for attention from Kavanaugh. To put that slanderous accusation in a little political perspective, it was not long ago that Graham, along with his late colleague John McCain, was regarded as one of the more moderate Republican members of the Senate. If that is still true of Graham, then the rest of us can only conclude that the World's Greatest Deliberative Body has been led completely off the deep end.
Anyone watching the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings from the very beginning, however, and doing so with any degree of objectivity and intelligence, would have been able to see almost immediately that he was almost certainly a perjurer, and temperamentally unsuited for any judicial post at all, let alone an Associate Justiceship on the Supreme Court. I'll put aside the question of how he couldn't remember whether he recently talked to a law firm or not, yet somehow had detailed calendars from over three decades ago covering his prep-school personal life. I'll even put aside the question of his personal finances, even though that question did and still does have a bearing on his character, especially his ability to be blackmailed.
Instead, I'll point out something that, in all of the controversy over the sexual abuse allegations, somehow got overlooked. And that is the fact that there exists evidence that Kavanaugh perjured his way into his previous position on the D.C. federal circuit court. You don't have to believe me; you can find out more about it here.
Now, you may recall that a Republican Congress once upon a time impeached and put on trial in the Senate a popular Democratic President on the grounds that he had committed perjury while defending himself in a civil lawsuit--a lawsuit in which he was accused on engaging in the sort of conduct that Kavanaugh was accused of engaging in with Dr. Ford. This was allegedly done not because of the salacious details of the alleged conduct leading to the suit, but because the President's alleged perjury showed contempt for the rule of law, which every president swears to uphold.
Needless to say, every candidate for a federal judiciary post testifies under oath and, if a candidate lies while doing so, is subject to the penalties of perjury. If Kavanaugh did commit perjury, it not only disqualified him from service on the Supreme Court, but also makes him a candidate for impeachment either from his former circuit court position, or his new one. Unsurprisingly, neither the Senate Republicans nor the politically-tethered FBI delved into the question of Kavanaugh's possible perjury too deeply--or, indeed, at all. Thus, a new entry can be made in the catalogue entitled "It's OK If You're A Republican." Especially OK, of course, if the opportunity to politically pack the Supreme Court for a generation is at hand.
Aside from the question of Kavanaugh's fidelity to the truth, however, there is also the matter of his temperament. Judges are supposed to be fair and, in order to be fair, are expected to keep their feeling on the proverbial even keel, thereby preventing them from being swayed in their judgments by anything other than the application of the law to the facts of a given case. Likewise, in order to be fair, they are supposed to deal with individuals who come before them in a way that does not show partiality to one cause or another.
If it seems overly obvious to make those points, it is only so I can demonstrate the abundant lack of temperament that Kavanaugh demonstrated over the entire course of his confirmation hearings. Early in the process, at the end of one day's session, he was approached by the parent of a school shooting victim, one who was concerned about Kavanaugh's Second Amendment views. Kavanaugh could have politely greeting him, shown a modest amount of respect for the man's loss, and otherwise excused himself without tipping his hand on how he might rule in a case that raised the issue of school gun violence. Doing so would not have betrayed any degree of prejudice regarding the relative rights of gun advocates versus students.
Instead, Kavanaugh retreated from the man with the demeanor of a frightened rat who was looking to avoid being poisoned. Again, you need not take my word for it; you can look for yourself. Personally, I was convinced right then and there that he was not someone who belonged on any bench. Why should the law of the land be shaped by someone who is clearly afraid of the people to whom it might be applied?
As if that wasn't enough, there was his diatribe defense against Dr. Ford's allegations, for which he appeared to have been coached into doing an amateur imitation of Trump. Whether he was following a specific line of strategy or not, he made an absolute embarrassment of himself. No sane person could come before a judge who acted like this and expected justice, or even fairness. The clincher in the whole mess of words was his reference to his previous work for Kenneth Starr against Bill and Hillary Clinton, suggesting that the accusations against him were only some form of political retaliation for that work. That reference, far from serving as an effective line of defense, only served to poison his own reputation by exposing him as a political hack, one who was only being considered for the Supreme Court to serve a partisan agenda. It also served to illustrate, for the umpteenth time, the Ahab-like obsession that conservatives have with a Democrat who, during his time in the White House, gave them much of what they wanted in a desperate attempt to avoid impeachment--and then ended up being impeached anyway.
Despite the many doubts raised against Kavanaugh, despite the fact that there were undoubtedly other conservative candidates for the Court with far less baggage dragging behind them, McCONnell rallied his colleagues and rammed the nomination through a badly divided Congress. Because, of course, that's what McCONnell does. Nothing he does has anything to do with serving the interests of the nation, its people, the Constitution, or the Senate itself. All of these long-term interests, in the majority leader's world, are routinely sacrificed in favor of the short-term political victory. And that is especially so when doing so may well have the effect of tipping the outcome in midterm elections that now are less than a month away. You can understand McCONnell's inability under the circumstances to refrain from gloating in the aftermath of the Kavanaugh vote--even though at least one conservative has counselled against doing so.
So, without further ado, here is my five-point plan for wiping the smug grin off of McCONnell's oyster-face.
First, impeaching hearings much be launched, not only against Kavanaugh, but also his partner on the High Court in sexual shenanigans, Clarence Thomas. As I said earlier, there is certainly evidence that Kavanaugh has committed perjury; there was also the likelihood that Thomas did the same thing, and was allowed, in less enlightened times, to get away with it. If anything is clear in all of this, it should be the fact that we no longer live in less enlightened times, and Thomas, for the sake of the Court's reputation and for the sake of justice in this country, should not get the benefit of being barely confirmed (52-48, the previous record-holder for a close confirmation vote) to the Court simply because a less enlightened Congress made that possible.
Second, take a page out of Franklin D. Roosevelt's book, and pack the Court. There's never been anything constitutionally sacred about nine seats: the Court could have one, a thousand, or any number that Congress and the President see fit for it to have. Add two seats. Hell, add four, or six.
Politically, it would be a very heavy lift but, like FDR's attempt, it might send a message to the Court that its jurisprudence can't survive if it is not sensitive to the will of all the people. And it would certainly send a message to the Republicans that there are consequences to playing politics with the judiciary. Having already blazed that trail, they are in no position to try to club the Democrats over the head with that argument.
Third, and either of these would be a heavy political lift as well, either pass a statute limited the jurisdiction of the Court or, better yet, do so by constitutional amendment. Such an amendment could also impose term limits on the Justices, thereby lessening the pressure and the high-stakes politics that now surround lifetime appointments. It could also provide a mechanism for overturning Supreme Court decisions, such as by votes in the state legislatures.
Fourth, investigate the living daylights out of McCONnell. There is every reason to believe, going back to his willingness to block a Russian investigation before the 2016 election, that he is every bit as complicit as T**** is with allowing Vladimir Putin to try to turn the United States in a proxy state to do his bidding. Just as we need to know everything we can find out about T****, we need to do likewise with McCONnell.
Fifth, and the most fundamental point I can make here, is that none of these ideas are going to go anywhere in the current configuration of political power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. We need, American needs, our future needs a Democratic Congress in Washington by next January, so that all of this can begin, and include the impeachment of T****, without question the most impeachment-worthy President this country has ever had the misfortune to have.
You know what you have to do.
DO IT!
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