SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s support is at a historic low. Maria Caspani writes up the Reuters/Ipsos poll:
A growing number of Americans said they opposed President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, as the candidate’s confirmation hearings took place and as he fended off a sexual assault claim, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
The Sept. 11-17 poll found that 36 percent of adults surveyed did not want Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court, up 6 points from a similar poll conducted a month earlier.
Only 31 percent of U.S. adults polled said they were in favor of Kavanaugh’s appointment.
If support for his nomination remains this weak, Trump’s pick would rank among the lowest-supported Supreme Court nominees to later be confirmed, according to historical data from Gallup.
Here’s Eugene Robinson’s take at The Washington Post:
By now, we should know not to expect fairness from this Republican leadership, which richly deserves to be voted out of power. But we must at least demand basic decency — which, in this case, means giving Ford’s allegation the hearing it deserves.
It is not enough to listen to he-said, she-said testimony for a few hours and then call it a day. The FBI should be asked to reopen its background investigation of Kavanaugh and look into Ford’s claim. Such an effort would not take long at all — and would be in Kavanaugh’s best interests if he is innocent.
Catherine Rampell emphasis this is a question of character:
Teenagers, particularly drunken teenagers, sometimes commit awful, cruel, even criminal acts — acts that can wound victims for decades. When possible, they should be held appropriately accountable. However, what provides more insight into a person’s moral rectitude is, arguably, not what he did as a minor but how he handles such sins once he has developed into a mature adult. Specifically, whether he takes responsibility and expresses contrition.
And if Kavanaugh is continuing — today, as a 53-year-old man — to deny a crime he in fact did commit as a drunken teenager, that casts doubt not only upon his character as a teen but also on his trustworthiness in other high-stakes matters today.
The USA Today editorial board encourages Ford to testify and says that her testimony should be the beginning of the process, not the end:
[Her testimony] should be the beginning, not the end, of the process.
Once Ford has testified — she has been offered the opportunity to do so in private or in public, before Senate Judiciary Committee members or staff — the FBI or lawyers named by Democrats and Republicans should dig into the details and get other relevant witnesses to answer questions under oath.
Retired judge Nancy Gertner explains why we need an FBI investigation:
Without the context that the findings of an F.B.I. investigation could provide, the Senate hearing planned for Monday pitting Brett Kavanaugh against Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assault, runs the risk of being seen as little more than Kabuki theater, or, more pointedly, a gesture of appeasement to the #MeToo movement.
In other words, we gave her a hearing, now we’re ready to vote.
With no other witnesses or evidence, we’ll end up with a high-status, high-profile male judge squaring off against an unknown female research psychologist from Northern California. This “he said, she said” standoff is unlikely to change any minds and might merely reinforce the preconceptions of the senators who will vote on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the United States Supreme Court. And we know how that is likely to turn out.
On a final note, don’t miss Jackie Kucinich and Andrew Desiderio at The Daily Beast and their explainer on how Democrats are prepared to have Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) — both former prosecutors — take the lead in questioning. Harris explains that the burden of proof is not the same as in a criminal case:
“In this situation, let’s be clear about this, this is about whether or not this guy should get a promotion. That’s the inquiry. And we do not have the burden of proving this beyond a reasonable doubt,” added Harris, who said this week that she believes Ford’s allegations. “This is about whether he has the judgment, the character, and the suitability to serve a lifetime appointment on the highest court. Which is a court that has, as its purpose and responsibility, to be the purveyor of justice.” [...]
Klobuchar, meanwhile, once ran the largest prosecutor’s office in Minnesota and supervised an office that handled hundreds of sexual-assault and sexual-abuse cases during her tenure. Asked about how her questioning might change due to the circumstances under which Ford is appearing before the committee, the Minnesota lawmaker indicated it will come down to tone.