Democrats don’t really care about documents from Brett Kavanaugh’s time working in the White House. Democrats only really care about Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion on abortion. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., gave that away.
The ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee wasn’t halfway through her remarks when she admitted that Roe v. Wade was the core problem here. After noting that Kavanaugh believes the landmark 1973 decision is “settled law,” Feinstein followed up with an admission, “The question is really: Do you believe that it’s correct law?” Feinstein and the other nine committee Democrats, in other words, won’t vote to confirm Kavanaugh unless the judge promises to rule the way they want on abortion.
[Also read: Democrats inject chaos into Brett Kavanaugh hearing with delay demands]
This was startlingly honest but not surprising. Liberals care less about the legal qualifications of a nominee and more about their political beliefs. It isn’t about putting qualified judges on the bench who will faithfully interpret the law and uphold the U.S. Constitution. It is instead a political referendum. In this case, it is a referendum on a garbage legal decision.
Not only does Roe deserve to be overturned because it is morally reprehensible, Roe deserves to be overturned because it is constitutionally inexcusable. Even liberal legal scholars like Edward Lazarus, a former Harry Blackmun clerk, admit as much. “As a matter of constitutional interpretation,” he wrote, “even most liberal jurisprudes — if you administer truth serum — will tell you it is basically indefensible.”
Dozens on the Left have already said the same without guzzling any serum including, perhaps most notably, Ruth Bader Ginsburg who called the ruling “heavy-handed judicial activism.” A long but by no means comprehensive list put together by Tim Carney can be found here. It drives home the awful the deceit at the heart of Feinstein’s questioning.
An honest judge just doing his or her job — interpreting the Constitution — would realize that Roe doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on. A legislating judge could go either way and Feinstein wants to be sure a supposedly impartial justice will be partial to her preferred opinion.
The problem with Roe is that it has no real grounding in the Constitution. It is manufactured. As Lazarus explained “a constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent – at least, it does not if those sources are fairly described and reasonably faithfully followed.”
Feinstein knows this. Democrats know this. They fear that Kavanaugh knows this as well.
