In "Justice on Trial," Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino have written a book that is riveting, highly informative and important. Confirmation battles have produced some excellent political novels (see, e.g., "Advise and Consent" by Allen Drury and "Protect and Defend" by Richard North Patterson), but none can compare to the real-life drama of the hearings on the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
Prospective readers should know that, although the book is not polemical, neither is it neutral. The authors (one a regular Fox News commentator, the other president of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network) clearly agree with then-Judge Kavanaugh’s characterization of the hearings in his testimony as a “circus” and a “national disgrace.”
Having watched almost all of the hearings on television, that is also my view. But "Justice on Trial" may perhaps be most profitably read by liberals and Democrats who would have voted against Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation but are sufficiently open-minded to think again about what the judicial confirmation process has become.
And what it has become is the political equivalent of total war. For so-called progressives, any nominee of a Republican president, no matter how qualified in terms of traditional professional criteria, is a target for personal destruction if he may be expected to reject the “living constitution” approach to interpreting our fundamental law, a method that has given liberals policy victories that they could not have achieved through electoral politics. Those policy victories are to be defended by any means necessary, unlimited by considerations of fairness and decency.
Hemingway and Severino provide a step-by-step account of how this worked in the case of Brett Kavanaugh. It began when Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Diane Feinstein learned of Christine Blasey Ford’s charges that Judge Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her in high school and elected to sit on those explosive accusations, holding them in reserve for later use if required to block Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Feinstein did not alert the Committee Chairman, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, to the charges, thus foreclosing a confidential investigation by Committee staff or the FBI that would have spared Judge Kavanaugh a public trashing of his reputation and would also have served Blasey Ford’s supposed desire for privacy. Nor did Feinstein ask Judge Kavanaugh about the charges when she met with him privately. Only when it became clear that the Democrats’ obstructive tactics would not succeed in defeating Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination were Blasey Ford’s allegations leaked to the Washington Post.
What followed, of course, was a media sensation putting Judge Kavanaugh and his family through a hellish ordeal, while making a mockery of Blasey Ford’s supposed desire for privacy. Despite Judge Kavanaugh’s previously impeccable reputation, scores of women who attested to his decency and good character, and the totally uncorroborated nature of Blasey Ford’s accusations, the Democrats took a “believe the woman” stance, conveniently consistent with their political objectives.
And when even that seemed insufficient to derail the nomination, the Democrats dredged up unproven rumors of Judge Kavanaugh’s supposedly excessive drinking in college and theories about the supposed sexist meaning of obscure jokes in his high school yearbook. Further, as was only to be expected, several other women and one man came forward with lurid tales of additional instances of supposed sexual wrongdoing by the young Brett Kavanaugh, which were either as lacking in corroboration as Blasey Ford’s allegations or turned out to be outright fabrications.
In sum, in a manner that should be disturbing to Republican and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, the Democrats were prepared to destroy a good man, with concomitant damage to his wife and two young children, if that were required to avoid a conservative Supreme Court. "Justice on Trial" squarely raises the question of the effects that choosing our most honored judicial officers in this way may have on our democracy.
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Top reviews from other countries
O. G. M. Morgan
The Kavanaugh confirmation hearings: a shocking indictment of American politics.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 28, 2019
Mdm Lee
If Justice is on Trial, then everyone is On Trial
Reviewed in Singapore on November 30, 2022PB
images and videos more helpful than text alone.
Reviewed in Australia on August 30, 2019