On Tuesday, Amy Coney Barrett spent much of her Supreme Court confirmation hearing trying to rise above the stench of the self-serving politics and skulduggery that President Trump has injected into the process. She did it without notes. Without raising her voice. And without really answering a single question of substance.
The full day of endless verbiage was not so much about Barrett as it was about how fetid the exercise has become.
Trump has devoted significant energy to blustering and tweeting about the sorts of judges he would nominate as president, and he has been forceful in his certainty that his choices would abide by his will. His desires include dismantling the Affordable Care Act, defending gun ownership as a right essentially without limits and overturning Roe v. Wade. Just recently, he has added another job to his wish list, one that helps to explain the urgency of these hearings: having a ninth justice on the bench in time to rule in Trump’s favor on any lawsuits that might arise from an election in which polls have him trailing and in which people have already begun voting. Continue reading.