On Wednesday’s edition of The Rachel Maddow Show, the MSNBC host told viewers not to take her word that Brett Kavanaugh is unfit to be a Supreme Court Justice.
Instead, Maddow rolled the tape of Kavanaugh himself saying years ago that the behavior he displayed during his Senate testimony would be disqualifying for anyone seeking to be a judge.
Among the requirements for being a good judge that Kavanaugh listed in 2015 were: “Keep our emotions in check,” “Not being a political partisan,” and “don’t be a jerk.”
If the 2015 version of Brett Kavanaugh was a United States senator, he wouldn’t think twice before voting no on the 2018 version of Brett Kavanaugh.
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Brett Kavanaugh’s own words are coming back to haunt him. #Maddow #ctl #p2 pic.twitter.com/7r9vaoKpPp
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) October 4, 2018
In the two clips shown by Maddow, Kavanaugh explained the requirements of being a judge:
To be a good judge and a good umpire, it’s important to have the proper demeanor, really important I think, to walk in the other’s shoes, whether it be the other litigants, the litigants in the case — the other judges, to understand them, to keep our emotions in check, to be calm amidst the storm. On the bench, to put it in the vernacular, don’t be a jerk. I think that’s important to be a good umpire and good judge. Don’t be a jerk. … First, and probably most obviously, not being a political partisan. You have to check those political allegiances at the door when you become a judge. You have to shed them. It’s very important at the outset for a judge who wants to be an umpire to avoid any semblance of that partisanship, of that political background, of that background they might have had in a particular line of work. That’s the first, probably most fundamental thing, for a judge who wants to be an umpire.
By his own standards, Kavanaugh is unfit to be a judge
It’s not just Democrats who believe Kavanaugh’s behavior during his Senate hearing was disqualifying. If you ask the 2015Â version of Kavanaugh, he would think so, too.
He fails to meet any of the requirements he himself set when he was speaking in 2015. The fact that he wants the U.S. Senate to confirm him despite his lack of fitness is, as he said during his hearing, a “farce.”
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Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
