28/05: Bush and the Judiciary
Category: Politics
Posted by: A Waco Farmer
On Friday, noting that the President had a great week, I mentioned the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh as a circuit court judge. A Washington Post article today recaps the confirmation but does not indicate the bipartisan support Kavanaugh garnered. It turns out that a friend of the Bosque Boys played a role in this confirmation debate as a signatory to a letter (one of twenty-five Yale Law "aluminaries") to the Judiciary committee leadership. (Click here for the PDF, which was released by DOJ.)
The letter begins:
"We are a bipartisan group who were classmates with Brett Kavanaugh at Yale Law School in the Class of 1990. Many of us have kept in touch with him ever since and value his friendship greatly. We write in support of his confirmation to the United Slates Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."
and later this:
"Many of us disagree—occasionally strongly—with policy views Mr. Kavanaugh holds. But those disagreements do not diminish our conviction that Mr. Kavanaugh is a fair-minded and reasonable man who would, as ajudge, interpret and apply the law fairly. Based on our years of knowing Mr. Kavanaugh, we are firmly convinced that his allegiance as a federal judge would be only to the Constitution and laws of the United States and not to anypartisan interests."
Two points on this:
1) If I ever decide to go to law school, remind me to go to Yale. Those guys have supreme confidence in their institution to produce movers and shakers, and they stick together. They seem to have the great ability to put politics aside and support service and competence. Well done.
2) Kudos to the President, who continues to put highly qualified conservative judges before the Senate. Kudos to his staff and the DOJ (Harriet Miers deserves a little belated recognition as well) for finding candidates so eminently qualified that the hackneyed partisan criticism (e.g., Ted Kennedy, a Harvard man, called Kavanaugh a "political operative" and the "youngest, least experienced and most partisan appointee to the court in decades") eventually withers in the face of their white-hot credentials, superior training, judicial temperments and fine intellects.
The letter begins:
"We are a bipartisan group who were classmates with Brett Kavanaugh at Yale Law School in the Class of 1990. Many of us have kept in touch with him ever since and value his friendship greatly. We write in support of his confirmation to the United Slates Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit."
and later this:
"Many of us disagree—occasionally strongly—with policy views Mr. Kavanaugh holds. But those disagreements do not diminish our conviction that Mr. Kavanaugh is a fair-minded and reasonable man who would, as ajudge, interpret and apply the law fairly. Based on our years of knowing Mr. Kavanaugh, we are firmly convinced that his allegiance as a federal judge would be only to the Constitution and laws of the United States and not to anypartisan interests."
Two points on this:
1) If I ever decide to go to law school, remind me to go to Yale. Those guys have supreme confidence in their institution to produce movers and shakers, and they stick together. They seem to have the great ability to put politics aside and support service and competence. Well done.
2) Kudos to the President, who continues to put highly qualified conservative judges before the Senate. Kudos to his staff and the DOJ (Harriet Miers deserves a little belated recognition as well) for finding candidates so eminently qualified that the hackneyed partisan criticism (e.g., Ted Kennedy, a Harvard man, called Kavanaugh a "political operative" and the "youngest, least experienced and most partisan appointee to the court in decades") eventually withers in the face of their white-hot credentials, superior training, judicial temperments and fine intellects.
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