What Brett Kavanaugh's former classmates, or a bunch of law professors, have to say on the matter is indeed irrelevant for most things. But it is relevant here.
Just like you would want to listen to computer security experts when talking about computer security laws.
I mean, I see what you're saying, and yes I agree with you that either way there's no free PR for those with "opposed political values" these days. But it's still relevant.
> You misunderstand him, believing him to be a "republican judge" when the concept of such a thing should not exist.
I want to clarify my earlier statements, and this goes for Stevens as well as Kavanaugh. When I say "Republican judge", I mean "Judge appointed by republicans, with an implicit political calculation that they will uphold pro-republican decisions". This is what has become of the court and there's no pretense around it anymore, and why I was saying in my initial post that I find it sad.
But if we agree that nonpartisanship is important, then I do not understand how you defend the actions of a man who, instead of addressing allegations in a calm and composed way, cried, yelled, and blamed "the democrats" for "a revenge for the clintons". How the fuck is that nonpartisan?
Maybe you've never been accused of something like what Judge Kavanaugh was accused of. In general, his defense was relatively rational and composed for what it was. And the comments about the democrats and the Clintons was probably correct -- he knows where all the bodies are buried on that front having been in the Bush White House.
The whole thing has been a democrat hatchet job from the day he was nominated.
I'm not a democrat or a republican by the way -- I think in general most of the people in the government from both parties tend to be power hungry narcissists.
There was a great deal of pushback on him even before he was nominated. The knives were out for whoever it was going to be -- it wouldn't have mattered who it was, they already had their strategies for all of the ones on the list.
And I'm not sure what "cult" you think I'm representing. I like the Constitution and I prefer that Justices appointed to the Supreme Court actually follow it. That's my ideology.
What's craziest to me is that, with some rare exceptions, Supreme Court appointments used to be pretty nonpartisan (https://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/reference/nominations/Nomi...). And now we're talking about a confirmation that will fail/pass by most likely one vote. And this... doesn't raise any eyebrows. It's fine if he gets confirmed, it's fine that the GOP got rid of the 60-vote rule for Gorsuch, everything is fine and dandy. He'll "follow the constitution".
> And I'm not sure what "cult" you think I'm representing.
I'm saying the way you talk, in other posts, is very cultish. Make of that what you will. Someone told that to me once and it made me seriously rethink the way I talked to people, and what kind of media I was ingesting.
Supreme Court Nominations used to be non partisan, and one might note that there is one party that made them not so.
The 60 vote rule was removed by Reid when the democrats had control -- for all other federal appointments. The republicans merely adopted the rule he put in place for SCOTUS appointments as well.
I don't have much of a post history here, so not sure where you're coming from.
If these two had been swapped, the same thing would have been happening to Gorsuch now and you would have been wondering how come Kavanough had been confirmed before and why there is no better candidate now?
Those organizations have no authority or credibility anywhere. Democrats care about what they say this week because they align with their political ideology -- which as I said should not be a factor in this discussion. Read carefully what I actually wrote.
Many people who want justices on the court who follow the Constitution disagree with Justice Stevens. That's just the way it is, and Justice Stevens was never a Constitutionalist Justice. You misunderstand him, believing him to be a "republican judge" when the concept of such a thing should not exist.
Those who hate Kavanaugh's "politics" are likely to get what they asked for if they are successful in keeping him off the court. Judge Barrett is so far to the right of him she makes him look like a communist -- and the knives are already out for her because she's a Catholic.
Judge Kavanaugh is actually somewhat of a moderate, if you read his decisions. He's simply unlikely to vote to keep Roe v Wade, and he's replacing the swing vote on that issue that has kept it in place for the last 20 years or so, and thus the knives have to come out -- Gorsuch wasn't quite so controversial (although they tried with him as well), because he was replacing an already conservative justice. In fact, Gorsuch is probably a bit less so than Scalia was. Scalia was a consensus builder, but he was famous for his absolute dedication to the doctrine that the Constitution is a dead document and it means exactly what it says and nothing further.