Here’s what I got out of watching the entire Kavanaugh hearing yesterday.
Brett Kavanaugh is a very nice man, at least in these ways:
- He loves his family.
- His family loves him.
- The kids he coaches love him.
- The people who have worked for and with him love him.
- He treats his employees well.
- … and he feeds the homeless…
- and he hires women...
On the other hand, he is a very nasty man as evidenced by how he treated one 17-year-old who was given the name Jane Doe in her court proceedings. As we all know by now, in fact as many of us have heard in a tape, he was doing everything possible to force Jane Doe to bring to term her unwanted pregnancy. (Read “Brett Kavanaugh's One Abortion Case” by the ACLU lawyer who represented Jane Doe.)
This is just about all I really needed to know to label him as nasty, but I will add in one more example just from yesterday: he rudely brushed off Fred Guttenberg, the father of 14-year-old Jamie, a slain Stoneman Douglas High student, who tried to introduce himself. (Right)
Mr. Guttenberg was on Lawrence O’Donnell last night. This is a man whose young son was slain, a man whose grief is fresh and intense, yet who is trying to honor the memory of his daughter and the other Parkland students and survivors by becoming an activist. He was shunned by this man who thinks he is worthy of being a Supreme Court justice, a man who turns his back to an outstretched hand because he can’t find a few words of compassion. Either that or it was more important that he rebutton his suit jacket and get his beleaguered ass out of there as soon as possible.
Lawrence O’Donnell called this incident “what could have been the most important moment” and “the most stunning and revealing moment” in Tuesday’s hearing. Lawrence pointed out the lavish praise Kavanaugh gave his daughters and the girls on their basketball team during his statement, and then the cruel irony that Fred Guttenberg who lost his own daughter was sitting right there.
Guttenberg said he was sure Kavanaugh heard him introduce himself.
Of course, Kavanaugh is nasty in other less person-specific ways which are too many to enumerate. The nasty ruling we can expect from him as a SCOTUS justice will hurt and disenfranchise numerous ordinary people from making legal safe abortion difficult or impossible to get to gutting more environmental regulations, you already know all about this (a good summary here). The Democrats laid them out in grizzly disturbing detail in the hearing.
When it comes to his judicial philosophy and his rulings on the DC Circuit Court he is only nice when it comes to enabling the right-wing agenda.
Otherwise, he is a very nasty man and when confirmed (as he also certainly will be) he will be a very nasty justice.
Still, every evening he’ll go home from making life miserable for more and more people, kiss his wife, and dote on his children.