PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

This is one of three departments I run with a free hand to manage as I see fit.

In past writings in this blog, I have tried to avoid the debate in the Senate over President Trump’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court because I don’t think I have anything to add from my post on the West Coast.  However, several commentators I read routinely do have points to make, so I include them here to lead off Bits and Pieces.

And, if you read this and think that I would be voting “yes” on Kavanaugh if I were involved, that is probably right and, for me, the basis would be the principle that a person “is innocent until proven guilty.”

From Jason Riley in the Wall Street Journal regarding the so-called “confirmation process” involving Judge Brett Kavanaugh:  “Predictably, Democrats have used the delay to argue that a one-week investigation is insufficient and that the probe’s scope is too limited. They’ve also decided, based on Judge Kavanaugh’s response to some of the allegations, that he lacks the right ‘temperament’ for a Supreme Court justice. The bigger concern for the country might be the temperament of Senate Democrats who are so willing and eager to dispense with due process in order to prevent President Trump from filling a Supreme Court vacancy.”

Comment: If I had the bad fortune to serve on the Senate Judiciary Committee, I do not know how I would vote on the confirmation. But, I think I would try, as Senate Democrats have not, to maintain a sense of political decorum. And, as Riley writes, to suggest the judgments about temperament flow from Kavanaugh’s appearance before the committee is silly – see below in Senator Orrin Hatch’s commentary.

From a piece in the Wall Street Journal written by Senator Orrin Hatch:  “A notable shift occurred in the left’s anti-Kavanaugh campaign over the weekend. Attention has turned away from Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations of sexual assault—the entire reason for last week’s hearing and the ensuing delay in Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote—and toward his behavior at the hearing.

“We’re starting to see arguments like the following: Even if Judge Kavanaugh is innocent, what he said at the hearing, and how he said it, is disqualifying.

“This is rich. The hearing occurred in the first place only because of Democratic duplicity. It occurred only because Senate Democrats sat on Ms. Ford’s allegations for six weeks rather than referring them to committee investigators, as they should have done immediately. It occurred only because Ms. Ford’s lawyers—recommended to Ms. Ford by Senate Democrats—refused to tell their client of our invitation to testify privately in California, as she said she preferred.

That Judge Kavanaugh had the temerity to defend himself vigorously is now being counted as a strike against him. Over and over we hear him described as ‘angry,’ ‘belligerent’ or ‘partisan,’ followed by the claim that his conduct at the hearing shows that he lacks a judicial temperament.

“You’ve got to be kidding me. Do the people making this argument really expect a man who until five seconds ago had an unblemished reputation to sit passively while his reputation is viciously and permanently destroyed? While he is accused of the most horrific and obscene acts imaginable? Judge Kavanaugh’s critics seem to be aghast that he is a human being who is unwilling to take slander lying down.

“Had Judge Kavanaugh sat dispassionately through Thursday’s hearing and denied the allegations weakly, his critics would have taken his lack of forcefulness as proof of guilt. We all know this. We’re not stupid. Spare us the pearl-clutching.”

Comment: Senator Orrin Hatch describes the status very well. 

From the Washington Post:  “Senator Richard Blumenthal in 2003 told a crowd about ‘returning from Vietnam,’ implying he had been there. He was not there. In 2008, he told another crowd about ‘the days that I served in Vietnam.’ He didn’t.”

Comment: I was struck by the senator’s duplicity as he had the guts to suggest that Kavanaugh was lying in one thing, so could not be believed in another. Takes one to know one, I say.

From William McGurn in the Wall Street Journal, regarding the underlying issue in the confirmation process — abortion:  “Never mind that Chief Justice John Roberts is unlikely to acquiesce to a move that would bring down the furies on his court. Or that it’s not clear Judge Kavanaugh would be any different, having assured senators that he regards Roe as ‘settled’ and ‘an important precedent’ whose central holding had been reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). Or that overturning Roe still wouldn’t make abortion illegal.”

Comment: No matter what Kavanaugh says, the Ds believe he will vote to overturn Roe V. Wade.

From Michael Gerson in the Washington Post:  “Is it feasible that some people are genuinely disturbed by a medical procedure that begins with two genetically distinct human beings and ends with one? Is it reasonable to credit the good intentions of millions of men and women who want the circle of inclusion and protection to include every human life, at every stage of development?

“There is, of course, a mirror-image problem of pro-life activists who regard pro-choice people as murderers. But that is precisely the point. There is a strong current of dehumanization running in our politics. The rival crew, it turns out, is not only wrong but evil. And how can mortal enemies embrace the give and take of a shared political project? Only the raw exercise of power can decide between them. The goal is no longer to win arguments but to crush opposition.”

Comment: Gerson is prescient again as he often is. He describes both sides of the abortion debate in precise terms. One side hates the other and never the twain shall meet.