Theater without meaning
Published 7:22 am Friday, September 7, 2018
The Japanese have a formal form of theater called Kabuki, in which elaborate planning and execution results in an exaggerated performance of dramatic, even historical, presentation.
This week, the committee hearing for the candidacy of Judge Brett Kavanaugh has become more Kabuki than meaningful consideration of a candidate for a lifetime seat on the U.S. Supreme Court.
The stage is the Senate Judicial Committee, comprised of slightly more Republicans then Democrats since Republicans hold a Senate majority of 51 to 49. The formality is the restricted form of questions that will be answered by the nominee, Judge Kavanaugh.
But this play has no drama. Indeed, it has no purpose, for the conclusion is forgone. No senator in this hearing, no observer of the exchanges between the senators and the candidate, matter in the least. This is not in any way about the qualifications of Judge Kavanaugh, even though it should be entirely about that issue.
So, what has happened to make this the theater of the absurd, rather than the thoughtful oversight of a Senate committee assigned the awesome task of determining who, if anyone, is qualified for a lifetime responsibility to interpret the constitution to current challenges in the law?
So much has to do with the old men who sit as senators, but act as curlish children, remembering long-held, meaningless slights of the past that are played out this week instead of lost in the memories of days gone by. As the judicial committee chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pointed out, he still resents that Judge Robert Bork, a Reagan nominee in 1987, was denied a seat on the Supreme Court by meanspirited Democrats who then held a Senate majority.
Bork opposed Supreme Court decisions allowing contraception use for married couples, objected to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and thought “one man, one vote” was an unreasonable proposition legally. His nomination was defeated 58 to 42, the largest margin ever by the full Senate. Nevertheless, Republicans have never gotten over their candidate being “Borked” and humiliated during his confirmation.
Consequently, when the opportunity came, with a Republican Senate, to subvert the Supreme Court process to their advantage, Republicans could not resist the temptation to undermine the process, perhaps forever.
The first step taken by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, was to refuse to allow hearings for D.C. Court Chief Justice Merritt Garland, an Obama nominee. Garland, a moderate judge, was denied in a historical first by McConnell, who refused to consider a candidate at all. Consequently, that left an opening on the Supreme Court that was later filled by Republican Neal Gorsuch.
Republicans had, by the time of the Gorsuch nomination, changed the long-held Senate rule requiring 60 votes to win a Supreme Court seat, a policy that almost always meant the candidate would require some support by members of both political parties.
So, now by a simple partisan majority of 51 votes, the exact number of Republicans currently in the senate, Republicans can elect a Republican candidate to the Supreme Court, and that is Kavanaugh.
This process is how this weeks’ confirmation became Kabuki theater; Judge Kavanaugh already has the Republican votes to win his seat on the court and the hearing means absolutely nothing, barring the candidate saying something so extreme the public would shrink in horror. That won’t happen, for Kavanaugh will answer no relevant questions about his past rulings or thoughts.
In fact, Kavanaugh will say nothing that would inform anyone about his qualifications…it will be theater all the time, drama lost in the meaningless exchanges between the bitter senators who now relish getting their new “Bork”, another extremist, on the Supreme Court for life.
With the now new process in place, we can be assured that forever more, there will be a Supreme Court of Republicans and Democrats, where the claims of judicial integrity and independence will mean less than a lottery ticket with no winning numbers.
The Senate is all Kabuki now.
Jim Crawford is a retired educator, political enthusiast and award-winning columnist living here in the Tri-State.