Looks Like Brett Kavanaugh Won’t Be Doing Any Boofing With Trump At Mar-A-Lago
During Donald Trump's single term in office, he managed to appoint three Supreme Court justices. It turns out he's as happy about the results as we are. He reportedly feels “betrayed" that his nominees didn't serve as his personal legal stooges. Trump recently expressed his contempt for the entire Supreme Court during an unhinged interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News.
We were very disappointed by the Supreme Court because they didn't have the courage to take it up, they did not want anything to do with it, too controversial, the Supreme Court did not have the courage to take it up and they should be ashamed of themselves.
Trump is clearly using the royal “we" here. He's gone full King Henry in his post-presidency. He's still enraged that the Supreme Court ignored his bogus election fraud suits, specifically the Drunk Mary pass one from Texas. He imagined that the conservative majority would declare Trump King Emperor for life, and while Samuel Alito is usually up for most anything, the Supreme Court can't just enable coups without some legal principle based in reality. Trump really got the wrong idea from Bush v. Gore, which was the Ocean's 11 of election heists. Trump's Kraken team was like the crew in Reservoir Dogs.
Although Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett are both dead to Trump now, he reportedly reserves "a particular bile" for Brett Kavanaugh. There's at least one thing we have in common, but it apparently doesn't bother Trump that Kavanaugh's a shouty beer lover who repeatedly lied to Congress and is credibly accused of sexual assault. No, Trump's mad that Kavanaugh landed his dream job despite all this but failed to hand over the rest of his soul, as promised.
Author Michael Wolff describes Trump's Kavanaugh meltdown in his book Landslide: The Final Days Of The Trump Presidency,which dropped on Tuesday. The insurrectionist in chief whined at one point:
I can't even believe what's happening. I'm very disappointed in Kavanaugh. I just told you something I haven't told a lot of people. In retrospect, he just hasn't had the courage you need to be a great justice. I'm basing this on more than just the election.
Yeah, this is all about the election Kavanaugh wouldn't help him steal. Trump likely can't name a single other judicial opinion of Kavanaugh's, or even a vote.
Trump now laments that there "were so many others I could have appointed, and everyone wanted me to," which is actually true. In a 2018 Washington Post op-ed, conservative David French wrote that the "best version of Trump would have nominated Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court." (The best version of Trump would've sought qualified psychiatric treatment decades ago and we'd have been spared this nightmare.) French preferred Barrett because she was more likely to piss off liberals, and he was disappointed that Trump went with a “safe, establishment choice." That was before most of us knew the name Christine Blasey Ford. It wasn't long before even liberals were willing to endure Barrett if that meant not seating an accused sexual predator on the Supreme Court ... again.
Trump told Wolff that during Kavanaugh's contentious confirmation, "practically every senator" called and asked him to "cut [Kavanaugh] loose," but he refused. (They probably also called him “sir" in this obvious make-believe fairy tale bullshit.) Instead, he "fought like hell for Kavanaugh — and I saved his life, and I saved his career. At great expense to myself ... okay? I fought for that guy and kept him."
How did Wolff keep a straight face when Trump suggested that he did anything for anyone “at great expense" to himself? He might not have pulled the plug on Kavanaugh, but he's not the reason Judge Boof was eventually confirmed. That honor falls to Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and especially Susan Collins, who sacrificed what remained of her dignity when she voted to confirm him. You could appreciate why she might get miffed if he doesn't send her a Christmas card.
Nonetheless, Mama Rose Trump wailed on, Kavanaugh was ungrateful:
Where would he be without me? I saved his life. He wouldn't even be in a law firm. Who would have had him? Nobody. Totally disgraced. Only I saved him.
If decency had prevailed and Kavanaugh wasn't confirmed, he would've still remained a federal judge. That's what was so annoying about the over-the-top declarations from Graham about how Democrats were trying to "ruin" Kavanaugh's life. His confirmation hearing wasn't some high-stakes situation where he either winds up on the Supreme Court or has to teach typewriter maintenance at the Rockoclubo School for Women. The guy's life was never in jeopardy.
Trump's so delusional, though, he doesn't just take credit for Kavanaugh's confirmation but his entire judicial career, which was doing fine while Trump was hosting "The Apprentice." Kavanaugh was literally a US circuit court judge the year Trump appeared in a commercial for Oreo Golden Double Stuf cookies, which aren't even the good Oreos.
[Axios]
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
