In a column headlined "Kavanaugh Meets Kafka In Kangaroo Court," Rich Lowry writes:
If Franz Kafka had written about confirmation hearings, he couldn’t have come up with a better scenario than the one now unfolding in the US Senate.
Brett Kavanaugh, who the day before yesterday was an unimpeachable pillar of the legal establishment, stands accused of a heinous offense that it is almost impossible to definitively rebut.
Even if he is completely innocent of the charge that he sexually assaulted a teenage girl at a high-school party 35 years ago, he will be forever considered guilty of it by some portion of the public.
This is not due process, or any kind of decent process at all, but how the Senate conducts its business, especially if you are a conservative jurist on the cusp of confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Professor Christine Blasey Ford, Judge Kavanaugh's accuser, is expected to come before the Senate Monday. Judge Kavanaugh will also answer more questions. It is essential that these hearings be public.
My guess is that Democrats would like to encourage Ms. Ford to delay her testimony. If the confirmation vote can be delayed until after the midterms, at the very least several Democrats in red states will be spared difficult votes.
If the Democrats take the Senate, a vote then would be the end of this outstanding jurist's promotion to the Supreme Court. President Trump would also never get the sort of judge he promised in the campaign onto the Court for the rest of his term.
While I am skeptical of the accusation, one other thing troubles me: are we now going back to high school to sully people's reputations?
I assume that you, like me, have grown up a lot since high school. Have you changed? Have you made a number of moral decisions since then that now define you?
Most people who commit offenses such as the one of which Judge Kavanaugh is accused, however, go on to do it again and again. Kavanaugh has a blameless record.
I look forward to hearing Ms. Ford on Monday (or whenever she comes before the Senate). I feel certain that she believes what she is saying. The senators should be respectful but they should also seek information.
To our country's everlasting shame, we lost one of the great legal minds of our time, Robert Bork, to the Supreme Court. Let us hope that the public is disgusted by the unfairness of this situation and the Senate confirms Kavanaugh.
If not, the Senate will have ushered in an age when a good person can be sunk by an accusation that, at least at first blush, sounds implausible and has no corroboration.