154-A: The Kavanaugh Nomination: when enough is enough

"The more people rationalize cheating, the more it becomes a culture of dishonesty. And that can become a vicious, downward cycle. Because suddenly, if everyone else is cheating, you feel a need to cheat, too."  

--Stephen Covey (from BrainyQuote)

Update 24th September 2018: I did not see this essay featured by NBC news at the time of the hearings of Judge Kavanaugh and the writing of this (my) essay as well as its predecessor. It fleshes out the uneasiness I harboured about Judge Kavanaugh's ambition and desire to please superiors interfering with his moral agency.

David Brock on the political trajectory of Judge Kavanaugh.

BLUF (bottom-line, up front)

Likeable as he is and virtuous as his public life and demeanor are, Judge Kavanaugh has failed to earn his seat on the Supreme Court. A lifetime appointment to a position of almost unchecked ethical autonomy makes his confirmation too risky for me.

John W. Dean III on a history of Republican misrepresentations for the Supreme Court.

REASON I: Suppression of Transparency
There is an old saying: "Where there's smoke, there's fire." We have seen limited smoke, perhaps not enough for there to be a fire. What concerns me is why there is so little smoke. Simply said, the oxygen supply has been cut off, meaning that there has been far too little transparency in this hearing. Proper accountability -- always a thorn in the flesh for virtuous and venal people or conservatives, liberals and pragmatists alike -- is the bedrock of any democracy; transparency is its life-blood.

THE ATLANTIC article first questioning the integrity of Judge Kavanaugh's representation and nomination.

REASON II: Fear of Attack and National Security Only Go so Far

Almost all of us were not in the White House on the 12th of September 2001. People who were should be given the benefit of the doubt for subsequent actions in view of the extraordinary, even existential pressures to which men and women were subjected after 9-11. Yet Judge Kavanaugh's assertion of everyday being September 12th has a time span of four or five years in his case. That is a lot of September Twelfths to swallow. For example, a number of people -- including Attorney General Ashcroft, Deputy A.G. James Comey and, most publicly, the late Senator McCain (R-AZ) --vigorously opposed these policies of torture during the time that Judge Kavanaugh served in the White House.

Judge Kavanaugh ducks a lay-up from Senator Klobuchar (D-MN).

REASON III: Courage is Neither Subjective nor Optional
Nevertheless, if the actions taken were proper at the time, why hide them so arduously through prevarication at best, perjury at worst? Why not be up-front and either defend the policies; admit to making a mistake in retrospect; or, admit to unclear thinking imposed by post-traumatic stress disorder. After 9-11, P.T.S.D. likely tafflicted many people working in the White House and Pentagon at the time. Instead, Judge Kavanaugh's evasiveness indicates, to me at least, that deep-down inside he and other officials knew what they were doing was wrong.

Time to pierce the veil; why transparency still counts.

REASON IV: Partnering Propriety with Unwillingness

Judge Kavanaugh has wiggled out of far too many answers due to a stated desire of not opining on possible cases or the need to protect the independence of the judiciary. Sadly, through misuse, he has hackneyed these principles into excuses. The evasiveness has crossed that threshold of stagnant reasoning by turning these stock answers into non-sequiturs to questions that have little to do with judicial autonomy or possible / pending cases.

Senator Booker (D-NJ) on why prevarication matters and on his case for recusal.

  

REASON V: Everybody Else Doesn't "Just Do It"

The Judge's practiced monotone comes across as choking off accountability. The difficulty here is that too many Republicans apparently view legitimate questions posed by Democrats as 'obstacles' to be avoided and surmounted rather than anxieties to be addressed. This type of obfuscation and deceit-by-deflection has not been practiced, to the best of my knowledge, with the four Justices to the Supreme Court nominated by Presidents Clinton and Obama (i.e., Justices Ginsberg, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Breyer). This spirit of propriety has also applied to several recent G.O.P. Justices (e.g., that I know of, Justices O'Connor, Kennedy, Souter and Stevens).

SALON article investigating Judge Kavanaugh's history and the history of prevarication by other G.O.P. nominees to the Supreme Court.

REASON VI: Moral Agency and Ethical Autonomy

As I stated in the original essay supportive of Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation -- I know, I am being preposterously self-important here -- the question comes down to moral agency and ethical autonomy. Judge Kavanaugh's performance lays his moral agency (at least outside of church and civic life) -- into plain doubt. The bitterest irony remains that one reason Robert Bork's nomination went down in flames was that he did take ownership of his controversial positions, if I recall correctly after so many years. From that experience, several subsequent G.O.P. nominees seem to have inferred that honesty is not the best policy nor transparency the best manner.

The human stakes here -- and what of our children?

From some of those 'damned millennials' at this hearing:

PART-1: gun violence and African Americans;

PART-2: pre-existing conditions; as well as,

PART-3: clean minds need clean air.

CONCLUSION

Nice man. By a great many accounts, a good man. But one who takes to heart that 'all is fair in love and war . . . .' There are other conservative jurists who are more forthright and exercise the moral courage to take ownership of their views and past actions. A lifetime appointment to a position of almost unchecked ethical autonomy makes Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation too risky for me.