What's wrong with Kavanaugh isn't just that he's conservative.
The big problem is that he's a committed political partisan in a way that other justices aren't. Even Gorsuch, who is basically a Scalia clone whose judicial philosophy is a crabbed, archaic constitutional literalism that generally favors corporations over labor and government over the rights of individuals, doesn't seem as extreme and biased as Kavanaugh, whose allegiance seems to be with the GOP instead of a traditionally conservative view of the Constitution.
And that makes me wonder how Chief Justice Roberts will deal with him if he's confirmed, which unfortunately seems likely. Roberts, while reliably conservative, is more of a centrist than Scalia's mini-me, Thomas, or Gorsuch; Alito seems a bit closer to Roberts in philosophy than he is to the other conservatives. All of these justices (with the possible exception of Thomas) have occasionally written or signed on to decisions that were reasonable or at least not terrible. Roberts also encourages collaboration whenever possible. Will Roberts want the court with his name attached to it to go down in history as one that's been tainted by a highly dubious process leading to the appointment an extremely conservative GOP partisan? Can he - and will he - protect the court from charges that the court's legitimacy has been damaged?
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Alito's my least favorite. I do think Roberts has in mind the historical reputation of the Court, and cares that it remains sound.
