David French of National Review expresses his disappointment in Trump’s nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to SCOTUS rather than Judge Barrett in WaPo:
Trump had — right in front of him — the judge who could be populist and principled; the person who could galvanize the base and be an originalist judicial bedrock for the next 30 years.
The president blinked. In the coming days and weeks, you’ll see conservatives rally around Kavanaugh. The judicial nomination wars will settle into their post-filibuster norm. It will be easy for Democrats to largely vote in lockstep. Kavanaugh’s credentials will make it easy for Republicans to do the same. In the coming years, he will make the court more originalist. He’ll certainly write at least some opinions that make conservatives stand up and cheer, but at roughly 9 p.m. on July 9, for a critical part of Trump’s base, the cheers for Kavanaugh were a tad forced.
There was, for the first time in Trump’s judicial wars, a palpable sense of an opportunity lost.
French seems to think that Trump is operating on a basis of conservative Christian principles. French should know better; Trump operates to benefit Trump. Kavanaugh has expressed respect for a broad power view of the Presidency, that the President shouldn’t be bothered with lawsuits, etc. This benefits Trump more than the empty glory that comes with nominating a conservative woman to the bench who, frankly, hasn’t Kavanaugh’s experience, whether or not my reader likes that record.
