Susan Collins deserves at long last to pass from the Senate and possibly from memory

Collins's speech is going to go down as a landmark in the annals of congressional smarm. It was too long. It was badly delivered. It made little or no coherent sense. Beyond the aesthetic, it was a suicide note delivered on behalf of her entire political identity.

This was perhaps my favorite passage—and by "favorite," I mean, "completely detached from any possible empirical reality on any plane of existence in this particular universe."

My fervent hope is that Brett Kavanaugh will work to lessen the divisions in the Supreme Court so that we have far fewer 5-4 decisions.

My fervent hope is that I will awaken tomorrow with six pounds of gold in each of my shoes, but I'm not counting on leprechauns.

[...]

[E]ven if you ignore the what Dr. Christine Blasey Ford came forward to tell the Senate, this is a guy who by temperament alone doesn't deserve the promotion he now apparently will get, and that even if you ignore the privilege-fueled tantrum he directed at the Senate Judiciary Committee, this is a guy whose judicial philosophy was not nurtured in academia or in the actual practice of the law, but in the rage-furnaces of modern conservative Mordor, and that these, taken in tandem, make him somebody who shouldn't be allowed within five blocks of the Supreme Court.

Moreover, [...] the stories about him are going to keep piling up, which in turn will make the FBI's perfunctory seven-day "investigation" look ever more like at best inadequate, and at worst, a deliberate cover-up.

[...]

[B]y not interviewing witnesses who were virtually begging to talk to its gumshoes, the FBI has guaranteed that these witnesses will tell their stories somewhere.

  Charles P Pierce

Collins' fellow Maine Senator, Independent Angus King, released this statement:

U.S. Senator Angus King (I-Maine) released the following statement after reviewing the FBI’s supplementary background investigation into Judge Brett Kavanaugh:

“The FBI report that I reviewed today does not confirm or contradict Judge Kavanaugh’s statements, nor does it undermine the credible testimony of Dr. Ford. For me, my decision is based on Judge Kavanaugh’s record, which indicates an overly rigid judicial philosophy that would threaten protections for healthcare, personal liberty and a women’s right to choose, the environment, and campaign finance laws; it is based on his refusal to recuse himself from any cases that may come before the court involving presidential power as it applies to the President who nominated him for the seat; it is based on his partisan behavior during last week’s hearing, which does not match the temperament and impartiality needed to serve on our nation’s highest court; and it is based on the voices of Maine women who in recent weeks have shared with me their deep concern about this nomination. Based upon what I’ve seen, read, and witnessed, I remain a no vote on his confirmation.”

  King.Senate.Gov

Hear, hear.

While I'm in Charlie Pierce's neighborhood, I want to share with you what he had to about the cloture vote advancing Kavanaugh's nomination to a vote by the entire Senate. He was so right.

Now, there will be 30 hours of debate, and then a vote, in which nobody will get to hide. We will get to see how counterfeit those heartfelt concerns of Jeff Flake and Young Ben Sasse really are. We will get to see again that Lisa Murkowski's centrism is real, while we'll get to see how completely artificial Susan Collins's "centrism" really is. We will get to see how utterly reckless Mitch McConnell is in perpetuating the power down through the generations, the Constitution and the republic be damned. We will get to see the steel in Heidi Heitkamp, who has gone all the way out on a very tremulous limb, and we will get to see, finally, what Joe Manchin is willing to sell cheap in order to stay in office.

We will see the true depth of the loyalty the congressional majority has to the developing oligarchy, to its dedication to rolling back the achievements of 20 years of civil rights progress, and to the heedless savage who sits in the White House.

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Kavanaugh's entire career prior to being installed in the federal court where he now sits was as a partisan lawyer, the political equivalent of an ambulance chaser. That was the part of him that came out in his now infamous tirade. That was where "revenge for the Clintons" came from. That was where all that business about money from "left-wing opposition groups." What is this guy going to do when one of those groups comes before the Supreme Court as a litigant?

  Charles P Pierce

I think we know.

And what if his pronounced deference to executive power comes into conflict with the president* who pushed him onto the Court? Is there anybody who has watched Kavanaugh's performance since his nomination who thinks he actually would step away from cases like that? This is his dream shot, and now he's aflame with vengeance. They're going to have to tie him to his chair to keep him from doing an end-zone dance.