There were always very reasonable arguments that could be levelled against the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Maybe his judicial track record showed bias. Maybe his views threaten abortion rights (
Roe vs Wade), affirmative action, or some other prior court decision. Maybe his prior work in Kenneth Starr’s investigation of Bill Clinton, or his work in the George W Bush administration, makes him too partisan.
Of course, there are responses to those arguments, too. Many Democrats believe Merrick Garland – whose nomination by President Obama was stymied by the Republican-controlled Senate, on the grounds that it came too close to a national election – is more deserving than Kavanaugh. (For what it’s worth, I agree that what the Republicans did to Garland was wrong.)
Yet, as Republican senator Susan Collins pointed out in her speech explaining her ‘yes’ vote for Kavanaugh, Garland and Kavanaugh voted the same way in 93 per cent of cases they heard together, with Garland dissenting only once from the majority decisions authored by Kavanaugh.
The Kavanaugh aftermath: what we learned