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Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Intentionally Rude

After his nomination to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh has met with nearly a third of the senators (who will vote on his confirmation).  This is traditional; senators and the nominee have "meet and greet" sessions where the senators can get to know the nominee in a private and informal format.  But there's a problem.  So far, Kavanaugh has been able to meet only with Republicans.  Not a single Democrat has found time to meet with the judge.  The excuse offered by the Democrats is that they don't want to meet until they have received all of the documents authored by Kavanaugh as well as all the documents he handled when he was on staff at the Bush White House.  It's an incredibly rude ruse.

First of all, meetings with the nominee have never taken place only after all documents have been delivered.  This is just a ploy to delay the confirmation.  Indeed, this is especially true since more than half of the Democrats have already announced that they will vote against Kavanaugh.  They know enough supposedly to decide how to vote but not enough to meet with the guy.

Second, the documents being demanded by the Democrats are literally millions of pages that Kavanaugh only distributed to others; he didn't write them or have any input into what they say.  It's another attempt to delay confirmation.

For his part, Mitch McConnell is playing hardball on the subject.  He has announced that the senate will stay in session right up to the November election if need be in order to vote on Kavanaugh.  There are a great many Democrats who are in close re-election battles who will have urgent need to get home to campaign.  Keeping the senate in session will hold their feet to the fire.

I would have no problem if the Democrats were to announce that they saw no reason to meet Kavanaugh because they have already decided not to vote for him.  It would be a silly position, but at least it would not be as rude as their current lie.  No matter how you feel about the confirmation of Kavanaugh, you cannot believe that he should be treated so rudely by the Democrats.  He is an honorable man and an honorable Judge who deserves better.

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