Posted: 23 September 2020 at 8:51am | IP Logged | 10
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Rebecca- who said there's no hypocrisy? Republicans are being incredibly hypocritical now. I think everyone agrees on that.
Rick, I agree Republicans stole a seat in 2016. They prevented a legitimate exercise of presidential power by Obama; and act that I have characterized in this thread as "shameful." That is why what they did should not set a precedent.
Does that suck for Democrats this year? Clearly. But what about next time? Or the time after that? If we set this precedent now, there's no telling which side will be negatively impacted in the future.
As far as Kavanagh is concerned, I think you've got some things wrong here. Kavanagh's appointment to the DC Circuit wasn't held up because he was accused of being an incompetent lawyer. Democrats argued he would be biased as a judge because he was part of the Ken Starr team that investigated Bill Clinton, and because he was part of the legal team that represented George Bush when Gore briefly contested the results of the presidential election in Florida.
The ABA also cited potential bias when they downgraded him to "qualified" in 2006. What you left out of your analysis was that the ABA unanimously rated him as "highly qualified" in 2016, following his years of service on the DC court.
As far as his "checkered legal past" is concerned, I'm calling BS.
- Yale law graduate, and editor of Yale law review - 12 years on the DC circuit court of appeals - 300 written opinions - The Supreme Court has ruled on 14 cases where Kavanagh wrote an opinion (or a dissent). The Court sided with Kavanagh 13 out of 14 times. - Highly rated law professor at Harvard and Yale law schools for more than a decade (hired by Elena Kagan) - Showed lack of bias by ruling against Bush administration agencies 23 times between 2006-2008. Also ruled against the Republican National Committee on campaign finance issues. - Is recognized as a feeder judge, which means a disproportionately high number of his law clerks have obtained clerkships with the Supreme Court, including 84% of his female clerks. - As an appellate judge, his decisions were joined by Democrat appointed judges 88% of the time. Ruled together with Merrick Garland 94% of the time.
You accuse him of having bad character, yet those who actually know Kavanagh consistently praise his character, including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who descried Kavanagh as "very decent and very smart."
Regarding accusations of past sexual misconduct:
Christine Ford's testimony came across as highly credible, but there were still reasons to doubt her account, including that everyone else who she alleged attended the party where she was assaulted was unable to confirm, and some outright denied her story. Her best friend, who supposedly hosted the party said she didn't know Kavanagh, and didn't remember ever being at a party with him.
Kavanagh came across as equally credible during his testimony.
Deborah Ramirez described having someone expose their penis to her during a drinking game. However, she stated that she did not remember whether it was Kavanagh, and only accused him after others identified him as the one. But none of the "others" present came forward to confirm her allegations.
Julie Swetnick said in a sworn statement that she saw Kavanagh spiking punch at parties so that boys could gang rape girls who drank the punch (apparently none of the boys drank it?) Later she walked back her testimony and admitted she never saw Kavanagh do anything. She just remembered him being at the parties, and seeing him near the punch bowl.
Judy Leighton claimed Kavanagh and a friend raped her in his car. She later recanted and admitted she fabricated the story to prevent him from being nominated.
Bottom line: There was nothing conclusive. Admittedly, its extremely difficult to prove something that happened that long ago, and according to Ford, the others at the party were not aware of what happened, so they would have no reason to remember details of that day.
But this was a close call. In my view the fact that the vote followed party lines highlighted the hypocrisy among politicians in both parties. Absent politics, surely more Republicans would have voted against Kavanagh. And while Democrats universally opposed him, we have subsequently seen them rally around and support their own, when equally credible or more credible accusations of sexual misconduct have been made. The fact is, politicians on both sides are willing to look the other way when power is at stake.
Edited by John Wickett on 23 September 2020 at 8:56am
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