The surprising heroes of the Kavanaugh fight
So far we have:
Lindsey Graham
Mitch McConnell
Susan Collins
Collins was the goat until yesterday. But her speech made her the hero. I wonder whether she wrote it herself, and when. It sounded like it took a while to compose, and if so, then she’s been thinking “yes” on Kavanaugh for quite some time. I didn’t agree with everything she said—for example, I am much harder on Ford. But I think it was an excellent speech nonetheless, and all the more powerful for her being a woman from a blue-ish state, and for having a reputation as one of the most moderate people in the Senate.
Graham—well, Graham may have surprised even himself in this fight. But ever since I saw him speak at a small venue during the 2016 campaign, I’ve been impressed by his very well-developed sense of humor, which was on full display that day, and his sharp mind.
Ever since the Garland nomination it’s been clear that McConnell is very serious about getting people on the right on the Court. Very. But for years, people on the right have been criticizing him as an establishment squish, no different and no better than the Democrats. Not true, although he has his faults.
I said “surprising,” so I didn’t put Trump in there because his defense of Kavanaugh is unsurprising, although it certainly was necessary. And Kavanaugh himself perhaps should be listed, except that since we hardly knew him before this, we can’t be too surprised.
That’s not a trio that conservatives usually praise. But that’s the way this one played out, strangely enough. The Democrats’ conduct was so egregiously horrific that even those predisposed to reach across the aisle (Graham, Collins) felt as though their hands had been slapped, and they didn’t like it one little bit.
Of course, the fat lady has not sung yet.
I wonder if Dems quite realize yet that they broke the “bipartisan” angle. People who often play that game saw through them this time.
I doubt that anyone can predict the extent of the fallout from this debacle. For starters, I hope that Republicans in the Senate now fully grasp that they are not dealing with honorable people on the other side, and will treat them accordingly.
I also hope that the Republican base will stay energized. I have decided to make a small contribution to the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee to help where needed. I never thought I would say that.
I just watched a video of Senator Collins entire speech, and a thought it was masterful, and in the best traditions of what the Senate in past times was, and still should be.
Her speech was calm, thorough, it was methodical, and it was anchored in facts, it was logical, and it was of a piece with our best traditions.
What it wasn’t was an appeal to emotions instead of facts, an over the top, duplicitous, intemperate, vitriolic, red-faced, sweaty–a sly demagogue’s harangue, long on accusations, innuendo, and frenzied hatred, short on facts and justice.
Senator Collins did us and the Senate proud.
It’s a strange week in American politics when I find myself admiring Lindsey Graham, Susan Collins, and Cocaine Mitch. Graham gets bonus points for the Holy Grail reference.
Speaking of Lindsey Graham, folks might be interested to see his interview from 10/2 at “The Atlantic Festival.”
He has to fend off the interviewer, for one thing. (Although some interviewers take a point of view opposite to that of the interviewee, for the purpose of getting the latter to argue for or at least to state his positions to the public. Peter Robinson is great at this.)
He describes his general position, which is aligned with John McCain’s. He also mentions T. Kennedy, whom I frankly consider a pimple you-know-where. I still remember losing my respect for McCain when I saw the photo of the three of them yukking it up together. *ugh*
But for me, the most interesting part was in the second half of the interview, where he talks about his view of and dealings with Pres. Trump.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?452361-2/senator-graham-the-atlantic-festival
She hasn’t sung yet, but she’s warming up. As long as the 50 “yeas” (I’m assuming Daines is indeed staying in Montana) arrive at the Capitol safely…
We will be hearing about the stolen court and its illegitimacy for a very long time, of course, But I am happy to be where we are at now – and where we should be in a few short hours.
Stormy Daniels’ lawyer is the true MVP for the GOP. Democrats have always been smart with their smear campaigns, strategically limiting their accusations of wrongdoings to mostly only verbal sexual harassment or at worst groping as the burden of proof for those type of allegations is a lot lower than Rape. Limiting to only minor sexual wrongdoing allegations also has an additional and crucial benefit – prominent men would often settle and concede to minor sexual discretion to avoid drag on battles that usually end up causing more damage to the man (even a victory could be obtain at the end) than a simply settlement and an apology. There was a real possibility that Brett Kavanaugh would asked by GOP to drop out even if he was completely innocent if the accusation was limited to only to what Ford alleged. However, when the Porn lawyer insert himself into the situation and produced accusers to make outlandish gang rape charges against Kavanaugh, he foolishly destroyed any chances that Kavanaugh might drop out because a drop out essentially would be a confession that he gangraped girls. they backed Kavanaugh and GOP to the wall with no choice but fight back with everything they had.
“Of course, the fat lady has not sung yet.”- Neo
Since the Dems have pledged to impeach Kavanaugh when they retake the congress (may that be after he has long passed retirement age), we have to admit that “it ain’t over till it’s over.”
Kudos to Collins for the speech, but it’s the least she could do to salvage the fact that if she and Flake and Murkowski hadn’t been such squishes in the first place, none of this would have happened.
(Autospell tried to correct me to “Murkiness” which is just fine; I would have respected her more if she had just said, “My constituents are overwhelmingly against this appointment and I must follow their wishes” rather than bragging about her hyper-developed conscience.)
But, perhaps in the long run it is just as well that the bipartisan across-the-aisle appeasers finally got ‘Woke’ bigly.
I just hate that Justice Kavanaugh’s family were the ones that had to pay the price.
Last word on Collins: as she recited all the past judicial history she considered “positive” on his behalf, I found myself echoing Ann Coulter – wait a minute, are we really sure we want him on the court?
Knowing that Kavanaugh and Garland agreed with each other somewhere around 95% of the time was also not too reassuring, but obviously the most relevant factor is the 5% on which they disagreed.
The King is dead.
Long live the King.
For all the hyperventilating about a Kavanaugh impeachment, which would by itself not take him off the bench without 2/3rds of the Senate on board, the real person of interest for impeachment is Diane Feinstein.
If/when Trump replaces another liberal on the USSC, my wager is on nomination of a female with a socially conservative predisposition as a h/t to the evangelicals that consistently have his back, ironically enough. I think it was a strategic error not to do this for Kennedy’s seat.
The Fat Lady may not have sung quite yet – but a number of very ugly fat women have impotently screeched …. a LOT
You don’t like Grassley?
Some will say he let the circus go on, but that was the point. Just let them hang themselves.
Which they did.
Superficial analysis. Like choosing one detergent over another because the box says “New! Improved!” in big letters. Obvious con-jobs are not wins, they’re still con-jobs.
All Collins did was screw up big-time and damage the Senate and courts while she was at it by allowing the Dems to put on their circus sideshow. Then when developments made her position untenable and she realized that there was no way she’d have enough cover to vote “no” without drastic consequences, she jumped up and gave us the old “I meant to do that …” by giving us anodyne stuff which could have been copied from a ’50s civics text. This is not courage, this is rank terror of losing her job. Not everyone’s fooled–she’s still useless to the Rs in the Senate. She may have jumped up to a position as the biggest prima donna in the chamber, but that’s not really an accomplishment.
Graham’s intelligence and humor aren’t a problem. His almost unbroken record of failure to use his intelligence and humor to advance the work of good government is the problem. One lapse in that record doesn’t make him a hero–it just reminds us that he has no excuse for his usual poor performance, since he’s smart enough to know better.
McConnell performed as I expected. He never does anything useful until he really has to. When he finally does, he shows that he knows what he’s doing. And that leaves us all wishing that he did it more often.
No, you’re all wrong, or at least not completely right. The two number one heroes in this fight were Brett Kavanaugh, for not quitting… and Donald Trump for not withdrawing his candidacy. Any other president would have thrown in the towel and Republicans everywhere would. have. been. pissed! And ashamed to be part of such a cowardly assemblage. Damn! is it fun winning!
@jtku
Is that surprising that Trump and Kav were at the top? No. So you can read another post about the unsurprising heros.
But I’ll put Chuck ‘Hulk’ Grassly at the top of the list as surprising heroes.
Damn, don’t get him mad.
Despite the fight to get Kavanaugh confirmed, it remains to be seen if he turns into a squish on the court, like Kennedy before him, and like Chief Justice John Roberts. Some might think this fight and the attacks on him would clarify the evil of the ideology of the left. But the fact remains that Trump chose Kavanaugh because more conservative choices would likely have failed because of Collins, Murkowski, and Flake. Kavanaugh’s record is one of a judge who wants to find the center – not one who is determined to restore the Republic to its ideals.
I fear that even with Kavanaugh, we don’t have a truly conservative court that will be willing to roll back the abuses of judicial authority imposed over the last 80 years of Supreme jurisprudence. If “conservative” means conserving the gains the gains the leftists have made over the past century, then this is not sufficient. We may have accomplished stemming the tide of leftist judicial activism. But what we really need is a court that is “activist” enough to return the USA to it’s original conception. I don’t think Kavanaugh is enough.
And it’s people like Collins, McConnell and Graham, in addition to judicial squishes like Kennedy and Roberts that are preventing that return to first principles. I rejoice that the attempted character assassination of Kavanaugh – the most moderate of choices – was unsuccessful. It’s a start. But let’s not lose sight of the real goal – to restore to the people and their states the Constitutional Authority and freedom that has been stolen since the Progressive movement began in the late 19th century.
There is much work left to do…
Here in the mountains of Appalachia (West Virginia) we Scots-Irish are beginning to have some faith that the Republic our ancestors fought for will be saved.
In January the House will have a Democratic majority. Will they be in impeach-ment mode? It does not really matter because the Republicans will still control the Senate. No two-thirds majority to convict if coming out of there anytime soon.
As Instapundit pointed out, perhaps the genius of Trump’s pick is that Kavanaugh was pretty much a milquetoast establishment Republican character himself, so that the (inevitable, bankable) hysterical attack on him was felt by other RINOs as an attack against all; they were forced to confront in stark highlight the fact that the people they’re constantly “reaching across the aisle” to are hostage to an insane quasi-religious cult that will stop at nothing to gain power.
A bonus feature is that whereas prior to this debacle, Kavanaugh would have been likely to have been a mild-mannered Kennedy 2.0 if confirmed, he’s probably been radicalized by the experience – IOW, the Democrats have probably created the very monster they feared.
Yep. If the Dems want to understand how much they screwed up, they were able to make those three Senators the heroes of the right.
I can see securing Collins’s re-election becoming a cause celeb on the right if she runs in 2020.
I had started to give McConnell credit after holding the line on Garland, although I think that was less about giving the GOP candidate a chance to nominate because we all “knew” Hillary would win. I think it was about a middle finger to Obama for all his bs. That said, I started to give Mitch credit, but now I’m thinking I need to go back and review everything he’s done and see what I missed.
As for Lindsay Graham? He passed up the chance to be “The Maverick” now that McCain is gone. That was a position he seemed to be planning to take for years. Now he has “former friends on the other side of the aisle”.
I swear, I’m going to wake up and this will have all been a dream.
JTKu:
I explained in the post why neither Trump nor Kavanaugh can rightly be called “surprising.”
Scott states very well my own worries about Brett Kavanaugh as a Justice.
Though I’m certainly happy that he won the confirmation. :>))
One thing that bothers me a great deal is this emphasis on the Vast Importance of following precedent. I don’t see how an outcome of a SCOTUS opinion becomes in any sense a part of the Constitution. As someone pointed out, if SCOTUS opinions rule, then Plessy vs. Ferguson would still be considered “good law,” and sacrosanct. Also, that conclusion absolutely justifies the use of the term “activist judges” which has gotten (because of its usual misuse) such a bad reputation.
This is one place (of the many many) where I disagree with Richard Epstein. It’s one thing to argue that it’s extremely difficult to repeal — even merely de facto — entrenched expectations resulting from perverse law; but it has been done (Exhibit A, the expunging of the slightest whiff of discrimination against persons with Negro ancestry; and, of course, others as well). It’s another thing entirely that it can’t and oughtn’t to be done since it upsets established expectations. Which, of course, it certainly does; unless of course the public in general has come to see that the status quo is wrong.
I agree that a solid base of good (i.e. proper) law is the sine qua non of a stable and ethical political system. That is why we have the Constitution, and that is the ultimate reason to stick by it strictly, stare decisis or no, until such time as it is changed through the amendment process according to the procedures it sets out. (Which procedures, of course, can also be changed via the Constitutional amendment process.)
And no, of course the C. isn’t perfect. But it’s a good foundation on which to construct a serviceable (and ethical) political system.
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I was also less than impressed with S. Collins’ speech, by the time she was done with it.
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Changing the subj, some of what the Progs write about the Federalist Society is pure c*** and not fit to use as fishwrap.
Oops. Correction:
“As someone pointed out, if SCOTUS opinions were to rule, then Plessy vs. Ferguson would still be considered ‘good law,’ and sacrosanct.”
This was an entertaining “First Act”. The rest of the show should be fantastic. And very scarey.
There are some very unpleasant “monsters” outside the theater doors.
In the movie, Lindsey Graham will have to be played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Susan Collins will morph slowly into Xena, Warrior Princess, as she speaks.
Well, she hasn’t sung yet but she is off stage right putting on her horned Viking helmet.