Feinstein’s ‘Temperament’ Gambit Democrats lobby the ABA to reopen its Kavanaugh evaluation.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/feinsteins-temperament-gambit-1538337954
The intervention by American Bar Association President and Hillary Clinton supporter Robert Carlson against Brett Kavanaugh turns out to be even worse than we reported on Saturday. Now, exploiting the latest delay in a Senate confirmation vote, Democrats and liberals like Mr. Carlson are pressuring the ABA’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary to reopen its evaluation of Brett Kavanaugh.
The ABA committee submitted its evaluation to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Aug. 31. Paul Moxley, the Utah lawyer who chairs the ABA committee, wrote that “after an exhaustive evaluation process, the Standing Committee has determined by a unanimous vote that Judge Kavanaugh is ‘Well Qualified.’” That is the ABA’s highest rating.
The excuse now being pushed on the ABA behind the scenes isn’t merely the uncorroborated claims of sexual misconduct, which are being investigated by the FBI. The new claim is that Mr. Kavanaugh’s passionate defense of his reputation before the Senate last week showed that he is too political and lacks the proper judicial temperament.
“Judge Kavanaugh did not reflect an impartial temperament or the fairness and even-handedness one would see in a judge,” Senate Democrat Dianne Feinstein tweeted on Friday. “He was aggressive and belligerent.”
The media have picked up the meme. “The judge who previously served as a top aide to President George W. Bush and worked for independent counsel Ken Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton tossed aside his earlier judicious language of neutrality,” opined CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic.
“His declaration was the product of his personal anger, to be sure, and the move of a nominee whose professional and personal fate was on the line. But the result—of his rhetoric and the overall tenor of the nomination—means he could forever be marked as a politician on the bench rather than a neutral jurist,” Ms. Biskupic added.
The “overall tenor of the nomination?” Seriously? Who does the high-minded Ms. Biskupic think lowered the tone?
Mr. Kavanaugh didn’t ignore his 307 judicial opinions and hunt for dirt to destroy his reputation. Mr. Kavanaugh didn’t float charges about gang rape and ask questions about adolescent entries in a high-school yearbook. That was the “tenor” supplied by Ms. Feinstein and Democratic yearbook scholar Sheldon Whitehouse.
Mr. Kavanaugh is fighting for his professional life, has been accused of being a violent drunk and gang rapist, and he is supposed to respond like he’s at a Supreme Court oral argument on the separation of powers? Under this Feinstein-Biskupic standard, Democrats are allowed to say anything to ruin a nominee and then disqualify that nominee because he fights back rather than withdraws.
As for Judge Kavanaugh being a partisan Republican, what else is new? The four liberal Justices on the Supreme Court are partisan Democrats. The relevant standard for a judge is whether he can separate his legal analysis from his partisan affiliation. Judge Kavanaugh has a decade-long record of doing exactly that on the federal bench.
Speaking of judicial temperament, recall Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s rhetorical assault on Donald Trump in July 2016. “I can’t imagine what the country would be—with Donald Trump as our President,” the Justice averred, adding that the possibility brought to mind her late husband’s advice: “Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand.” How does that rate on partiality?
Reopening the ABA’s evaluation now would be unjustified and betray the legal guild as the left-wing partisan force in politics that it so often is. Mr. Moxley deserves credit for noting on Friday that Mr. Carlson’s last-minute freelance request for an FBI probe doesn’t change the ABA’s evaluation. He shouldn’t bow under backroom pressure this week.
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