Forget about the sexual-assault charge for a moment. Suppose another Supreme Court nominee — Elena Kagan, say — had appeared before the Senate and delivered a snarling, unhinged partisan rant, like Brett Kavanaugh did on Thursday. Suppose Kagan had charged “The behavior of several of the Republican members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment,” and then proceeded to accuse Republicans, without any evidence, of having concocted an elaborate partisan plot.
At that moment, that justice's confirmation would at minimum face severe peril, and probably be completely dead. Bear in mind that the central theme of every judicial confirmation has been a promise in one form or another to apply the law dispassionately, to “call balls and strikes.” Candidates who had a political background, like Kagan or Kavanaugh, faced stricter scrutiny and traditionally had to make more fulsome assurances that they had put politics behind them for good.
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