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Credit where credit’s due
The Democrats did a good job holding firm on the Kavanaugh nomination
The rewriting of history by the victors has now begun. Articles have been appearing arguing that the Republicans did everything right in shepherding Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to confirmation. The reality is much more complicated, and the Republicans should be cautious about taking their victory lap.
What we seem to be forgetting is that the Republicans had the votes. There was little, if any, chance of defeating Kavanaugh at all. I wrote about this over a month ago, as have Ezinne Ukoha, Austin Frank, Heather Jo Flores and others since then. To hope to defeat Kavanaugh given the Republicans control of all the branches of the federal government was nothing more than a pipe dream, especially given the fact that he was able to unify both the establishment Republicans as well as the Trump wing of the party. So congratulations, Republicans, you didn’t mess up a sure thing.
His confirmation, however, was by the narrowest of margins. In fact, it was the narrrowest margin any Supreme Court Justice has ever been confirmed by — even narrower than Clarence Thomas’s. Indeed, it was likely that this would have been the result even before Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations became public. So hooray, your disgraceful behavior toward a…
