U.S. Senate itself may be on trial

Published 9:32 am Wednesday, September 5, 2018

 

Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court has generated no shortage of heat. Now, it’s time for some light.

Democratic senators have poured their vitriol in the direction of President Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee who has taken senior status. That, before the nominee answered the first question before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

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It’s not personal; in fact, it’s difficult to find people who know Kavanaugh who dislike him personally. Rather, it’s business as usual in partisan Washington, where good manners, bipartisan cooperation and common sense are in short supply and have been for decades. That makes this continuing Washington spectacle worse — it shows serial cruelty, hysteria and rabid partisanship as matters of course.

Senators — at one time, they served in a great deliberative body — need to be above that. Now would be a good time to start.

Republicans, too, need to step up. They’ve pointed out shameful behavior across the aisle, and rightfully so. But how many Republican senators swore their support and pledged their vote before hearing Kavanaugh respond to a single, meaningful question from the Judiciary Committee? Let’s suspend final judgment until we hear some testimony and collect some facts. That’s how they do it in courtrooms, no?

The stakes were heightened when Republican senators refused to entertain President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland, a centrist, to the Supreme Court in 2016. That was wrong. The Senate had a duty and failed to carry it out.

In introducing Kavanaugh on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, rightly pointed out that the “level of disingenuousness and hyperbole, even by today’s standards, is extraordinary.”

“I sincerely hope this week we can all take a deep breath … and get a grip and treat this process with the respect and gravity it demands,” he said.

The gentleman from Texas is exactly right. No matter one’s feelings about President Trump — no one is neutral there — his two high court nominations have been first-rate.

In Kavanaugh, the president has forwarded to the Senate a nominee who is seldom reversed by the Supreme Court, whose education, experience and reputation for sterling character appear to be in good order. If Democrats know otherwise, they should ask questions and await answers. That’s the process.

Cornyn has personal knowledge and experience of Kavanaugh’s skill; the nominee helped Cornyn prepare a case when Cornyn was our state attorney general.

Sadly, Tuesday’s committee session opened in chaos, with partisans hellbent on keeping the proceedings from continuing.

Cornyn decried that the hearing — 63 times it was disturbed in the morning — represented the “first confirmation hearing subject to mob rule.”

Sadly, he was on target.

Take a breath, people. Get a grip.

Kavanaugh’s up for confirmation.

The Senate may be on trial.