EDITORIAL: Brett Kavanaugh sits for questions, and Democrats produce only a lot of noise

OPINION:

The Democrats, notably including the editors of The New York Times, have decided that the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings are but a charade, and they’re right for once. But they’re right, alas, for the wrong reasons.

The Democrats, based on their performance since Brett Kavanaugh’s name was first sent to the U.S. Senate, regard the hearings as a “charade” because Judge Kavanaugh is perceived as conservative and (a Roman Catholic besides) and conservatives by definition have no moral right to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.

To hear the Democrats in and out of the Senate tell it, justices like Judge Kavanaugh are out to do nothing less than dismantle the republic. They’re reliably said to be taking as their model the French revolution, where all dissenters to the new orthodoxy will be sent to the guillotine, and preferably one with a dull blade, to make the punishment fit the Republican crime of winning the 2016 election and sending poor little Hillary Clinton home in tears.

Here’s the full agenda for what Judge Kavanaugh has planned, as per an editorial in the Old Gray Lady: “Out with squishes like Anthony Kennedy, the court’s last true swing justice, and in with reliable soldiers like Judge Kavanaugh, who is likely to provide the key fifth vote to reshape large portions of constitutional and statutory law in a deeply conservative mold. That means, for starters, making it harder for minorities to vote, for workers to bargain for better wages and conditions, for consumers to stand up to big business and for women to control what happens to their bodies. It also means making it easier for people to buy and sell weapons of mass killing, for lawmakers to green-light discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender Americans, for industries to pollute the environment with impunity, and for the wealthy to purchase even more political influence than they already have.” That’s classic “viewing with alarm” and seems to include just about everything bad but the heartbreak of psoriasis. He’s a brilliant and powerful man, that Brett Kavanaugh. But can he really do all that?

The Democrats have privately thrown in the crying towel on the Kavanaugh confirmation. One Democratic senator who will vote “no” says he thinks there will be 55 votes, including 5 Democrats, to confirm. With prospects like that, all the Democrats can do is put on a show, and that was a humdinger Tuesday at the Senate Judiciary Committee. If you have neither the law nor the evidence, as any criminal defense lawyer could tell you, the only thing left to do is tap dance.

Yelling, screaming and raising old Billy Ned is all the hysterics present could do, and they did it. Capitol Hill hadn’t seen a gong show like that in years, and the Democratic senators were faced with a dilemma. They couldn’t rebuke the noisemakers because they will need them again some time, but they were making such a racket that the distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the Senate couldn’t make themselves heard through the din. Even the television cameras blinked in protest.

When Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont tried to plead for delaying the hearings until he and his colleagues could devour another several hundred thousand pages of Judge Kavanaugh’s record of explaining everything from the 300 decisions he has made as a judge to a lucid explanation of the infield-fly rule, a distinguished lady in the back of the meeting room screamed her objection to something so loud that Mr. Leahy, not wanting to offend the Democratic claque, nevertheless complained to the chairman to do something about it, whether the noisemaker was a Democrat or Republican. Several security men assisted in her exit.

It’s Democratic frustration at not finding anything in the Kavanaugh record to hang their hats on that’s driving the Great U.S. Senate Charade and Gong Show, which continues on Wednesday. Vaudeville was better.