Prior to the confirmation insanity, Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides. All the confirmation hearings did was potentially radicalize him to the right. One of the best things about being a supreme court judge is that he no longer has to care about being reappointed or elected. He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

> Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides

What is this based on? Everything I've read up to today, even ignoring the confirmation events, has indicated that Kavanaugh is not a desirable choice for those on the left side of the political spectrum.

My understanding is that when compared to alternative, qualified, right-leaning candidates, he was the most moderate. This is just based on people I know who have worked with him and tried cases in front of him.

He's the second most right-leaning Supreme Court justice:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-conservative-is-bre...

That is a year old, guessing based on what he did before being appointed. His actual votes put him much closer to the middle.

> He's not doing damage control, he's just being a supreme court judge.

As of last week, Rasmussen (a conservative polling firm) was sampling support for impeachment of Kavanaugh.

It's possible that Kavanaugh is completely ignoring the topic, and has dedicated himself to the high-minded topic of jurisprudence. It's also possible that he is aware of such polling and is building support should the winds change.

But I've seen some speculation that after all the awfulness of the confirmation hearings accusing him of being a hard-right leaning justice that he would actually try (consciously or not) to show he's not locked into that mindset.

That certainly could be true. I like to believe supreme court justices remember that with that role comes with the truest ability to be impartial and unbeholden.

The justices probably don't believe that they are partisan. Rather, they believe that their own perspectives represent objective truth.

The same things (and worse, IIRC) were said of Roberts, and while I disagree with some of the rulings he has made, he's been remarkably unpartisan.

I believe all of these justices care a lot more about their legacy of justice and the sanctity of the court than anything else.

That's an interesting rewriting of history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Kavanaugh_Supreme_Court_...

> Kavanaugh was viewed as one of the best supreme court justice nominations for all sides

No he wasn’t. He was considered a partisan hack at best and was less popular than most previously confirmed justices.

He did get approval from the Amy Chuas and Neal Katyals and Akhil Amars but that says more about elite Ivy League in-groups than anything else.

Was he not shunned by the Ivy League in-groups, as per [1]? I don't think this is as simple as it seems to be.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-were-brett-kavana...

That was post hearings, not pre hearings as implied by the GP.