More high drama

With the deadline for a floor vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh just a week away, here is where we stand:

• He demonstrated in Thursday’s testimony his partisan peevishness and lack of emotional equilibrium. His temperament is ill-suited to making judicial decisions.
• His testimony has included lies about his knowledge of purloined emails and about his own hard-drinking life as a teenager.
• His decisions as a judge are distasteful if not odious: he is an avowed opponent of subpeoning a sitting president, has tried to impose his own “pro-life” values on a teenage immigrant, and will do his best to shield companies from accountability for their actions while trying to reverse progress in ensuring civil rights.
• The White House is trying to limit the reopened FBI background investigation in ways that will make it impossible to interview relevant witnesses.

Any one of these items would in my view make Kavanaugh ineligible to become a Supreme Court justice and bring into question his current position on the DC Court of Appeals. Together they suggest there is something profoundly wrong with the person who nominated him. How did President Trump think he was going to get away with this?

He almost did, and he might still, because of the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. Only an extraordinary #metoo uprising and two women confronting a retiring Republican Senator on the outs with the President combined at almost the last moment to block the railroading of this blatantly disqualified candidate through the Senate.

So what will happen next Friday? Hard to tell. The FBI will certainly find much more drinking and harassment of girls in Kavanaugh’s circle than he was prepared to let on. But whether it will come up with credible witnesses who tell interesting tales about his own misbehavior is in doubt. The White House effort to limit the inquiry will cast doubt on its outcome, if it finds no malfeasance by Kavanaugh.

Just as important: will women continue and amplify their effort to raise consciousness and create a popular backlash against the appointment of Kavanaugh? I’m sure some will try, but protest has to be loud, visible, and widespread to make politicians think twice. Here the press will play an important part. #metoo needs coverage to be effective. It will make an enormous difference to the outcome if polling shows a serious potential impact on the November 6 election.

The Republican leadership is still determined to confirm Kavanaugh, because he would tilt the court definitively in a radical right-wing (I can’t honestly call it conservative) direction. President Trump will back him 100% until he doesn’t. The delay so far has rendered it virtually impossible for another nominee to be confirmed before November 6. We are in for more high drama.

Here for those who may have missed it are highlights of last week’s testimony: