The Supreme Thing

America is caught in an ethical debate. Do the Republican Senate majority have the moral right to approve a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg so close to an election—something they refused to do for Obama in 2016?

If they do it, Democrats are charging hypocrisy.

Is the situation now different from 2016? It is, in several ways. First, in 2016, Obama was in his final term. No matter what happened, there was going to be a new president. This time, there is only a 50% chance. Second, in 2016 the Senate and White House were held by different parties. If the Senate has the right to refuse to appoint, does it follow that they have a duty not to appoint? They have a right to pass a law against jaywalking; not an obligation to pass a law against jaywalking.

Are these differences significant?

Suppose they aren’t. Even so, it looks like a wash: then the Republicans are doing the opposite of what they did in 2016, but the Democrats are demanding the opposite of what they demanded in 2016. Everybody’s equally a hypocrite, then.

Two wrongs, you might respond, never make a right. If Democrats are hypocrites, that does not give the Republicans the right to be hypocrites too.

Yet there are cases in which two wrongs do make a right. You pick my pocket, then I pick yours in turn, and get my wallet back. If the Holy Roman Empire invades, France has not only a right, but a duty, to defend. Even though war is a wrong, and killing people is a wrong. If the French win the war, right is restored. Sending a criminal to jail is another example of two wrongs making a right: it is, in itself, a wrong to restrict someone’s liberty.

In this case too, one side may be in the wrong, and the other side merely playing defense.

Appointing a Supreme Court judge used to be a bipartisan affair, with the Senate assuming the president had a right to appoint his preference, and looking only at their legal qualifications. The Democrats ended that in 1987, in refusing to ratify Robert Bork because they thought he would vote against Roe v. Wade. In 2013, to get the candidates they preferred on the bench, the Democrats used their Senate majority to end the right to filibuster judicial appointments. That ended any need for bipartisanship, and made it a strictly partisan process.

Moreover, their basic premise in approving judicial appointments has long been to install justices who intend themselves to break the rules: justices who will not simply interpret the constitution, but who will impose a political agenda. Had they not done so, judicial appointments would not matter politically: to the point at which, now, the appointment of the right judges seems to have become the Senate’s main job.

In such a situation, it is just stupidity, or moral cowardice, for Republicans to refuse to defend their interests. It is like refusing to take up arms when invaded.

They must act swiftly on a new appointment; for the good of the country. The Democrats have been tinkering with the election rules as well. They have introduced large-scale mail-in voting for this election. The system is untried; it is likely that there will be legal challenges. Unless there is a decisive win, it is going to be a mess. Such challenges will go to the Supreme Court, as they did in 2000. With only eight justices, it is theoretically possible that the court could split 8 to 8, and be unable to resolve the matter.

The civil war that might result would not be pretty.

The Latest Claims on Blasey Ford

I seem to be too groggy just now to do productive work, so let's instead dish on the latest about the Kavanaugh nomination and hearings.

It seems a former boyfriend of Blasey Ford, of some six years' standing, has now made a sworn statement to the Senate panel that contradicts her on some of her testimony. She had testified that she never gave anyone advice on taking a polygraph test. He says he saw her give someone advice on taking a polygraph test.

Not only does this constitute, if true, her lying under oath, a felony; but if she gave someone such advice, it also implies she may well have known how to beat one. This cancels out any significance to her having taken one on her Kavanaugh claims. And it would not be suprising, after all, if she, a psychology prof, knew something about how to beat a polygraph. They are notoriously unreliable anyway.

When she was questioned on this in front of the senate panel, she oddly added the gratuitous observation that she was surprised at how long the polygraph test took. As if to give a tone of authenticity to her denial of knowing anything about them. This is odd, because apparently she was asked only two questions. It was uncommonly short, not uncommonly long. This sounds like a spontanous lie committed by someone who is lying and nervous about it, and so trying to throw the hounds off the scent. Once you start in lying, there is a strong natural instinct to spontaneously begin saying the opposite of the truth. It feels safer.

The same boyfriend's statement also accuses her of having committing credit card fraud; which does not speak well of her honesty. He also says as far as he ever knew over six years together, she had no claustrophobia, and was living in a small apartment with only one door when he knew her. This contradicts other parts of her testimony.

This all makes her sound very much, just as I thought, like a narcissist. Narcissists can lie and sound sincere, because they are able to at least half convince themselves that whatever they want to believe is the truth.

In other related news, Ford said at the hearing that the issue of putting a second door in their home led to marital conselling in 2012. Yet it turns out, someone discovered by looking at the building permit, the door was put in in 2008, four years earlier. She claimed it was because of her claustrophobia; yet it appears rather to have had the effect of creating a second apartment in their home.

We already know that her claims of fear of flying were false; but this is less relevant, because she did not make those claims under oath.

Others have remarked that her voice while testifying sounded artificial, a “vulnerable little girl” voice. Again, this suggests someone acting a part, and perhaps someone who habitually does so.

To me at least, it all fits.