While it’s an important contention as Kavanaugh’s nomination goes into extra innings, Jennifer Rubin’s column today in WaPo made me laugh.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but should not Kavanaugh recuse himself from every case involving a left-leaning group that is part of the conspiracy he decried?
As he yelled at Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was not hard to imagine that he would be less than evenhanded if they were a party in litigation. “With his unprecedented attacks on Democrats and liberals, Kavanaugh must now likely broadly recuse himself from matters including those groups,” says ethics guru Norman Eisen. “It may wipe out a substantial portion of his docket should he be confirmed. We have a rule of thumb in government ethics: When recusals are so broad that the nominee can’t do his job, then maybe he shouldn’t be confirmed to the position. It is time to consider that question here.”
Partisans are rarely, if ever, capable of empathy with anyone outside of their own little tribe, it’s practically definitional. So it’s not surprising that Kavanaugh may have given his little emotional outburst with hardly any thought as to how it would sit with those who might come before him, not only if he makes it to SCOTUS, but even if he must return to his current seat on the D.C. Court of Appeals.
He’ll probably set a record for the most recusal requests from attorneys, given his naked display of anti-liberal bias.
Not that most cases have clear conservative vs liberal parties, but there are always a few, and it may become a strategy for Supreme Court attorneys to try to decide if Kavanaugh might, a priori, render his decision against them, and, if so, first ask him to recuse himself.
It’ll become a matter of some humor among attorneys, I’d imagine. And an Associate Justice of SCOTUS should hardly want to be the laughingstock of his colleagues.
Yep, makes me laugh. Just like the President to whom he practically, and quite unethically, swore allegiance is also a laughingstock.
There’s a joke buried in there somewhere.
