Pierce: A High-End Legal Ratf*cker Is Still a Ratf*cker

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23570618/brett-kavanaugh-republican-ratfcker-supreme-court/

A High-End Legal Ratf*cker Is Still a Ratf*cker
Brett Kavanaugh's record is clear.
By Charles P. Pierce
Oct 2, 2018


Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had himself a high-dudgeon shit-fit on Tuesday as he opened the Senate for business. His topic, unsurprisingly, was the fact that Brett Kavanaugh, the Yalie who put the bull in Bulldog, is not yet ensconced for life in a comfy chair in the Supreme Court. Mitch has been having these low-volume high-sterics every day for a week now, since Jeff Flake threw McConnell's well-designed railroad off the tracks last Friday.

Now, with the seven days McConnell promised for a renewed investigation running out, Mitch is stoking up the boilers to get a running start on Friday.



Merrick Garland, Mitch.

So here's my thing. I believe most of what has been alleged about Brett Kavanaugh from the people who knew him back in the day. His demeanor before the committee last week made him look like every privileged lace-curtain Irish inebriate with whom I grew up. I believe everything Dr. Christine Blasey Ford said about him, not because I oppose his nomination, but because she was human and he was a wind-up rage doll. Those charges and that temperament are enough to keep him off the Supreme Court. Hell, they're enough to keep him out from behind the counter at Costco.

But, even if these most recent charges never emerged, I want him kept off the Supreme Court, even though his attitude last week is a damned good reason. (And, as The Washington Post reported, it was what gave the American Bar Association pause regarding Kavanaugh's demeanor during the judge's first go-round in the Senate.) I want him kept off the Supreme Court because, up until C-Plus Augustus rammed him onto the bench in 2006, Kavanaugh's career was not that of a lawyer, but that of a partisan ratfcker. If he gets confirmed, we will have a vengeful partisan ratfcker on the Supreme Court for the rest of my lifetime, and that's not a legacy I want to leave behind.

Of all the things about which he has hedged and fudged and prevaricated, his services to conservative ratfcking exercises—from the Great Penis Hunt of the 1990s, to the brawl over little Elian Gonzalez, to the 2000 presidential burglary, to his activities on behalf of the Avignon Presidency—are the most consequential of his many misleading fairy tales, sleight-of-hand alibis, and outright lies.

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In short, there is a fine living to be made as a partisan lawyer specializing in high-end political ratfcking. It's an industry now. But a partisan ratfcking lawyer should not be able to hedge, and fudge, and prevaricate his way onto the Supreme Court. I'm also worried that he might chuck some water at counsel during oral arguments, but I'm putting that concern on, well, ice for a while.