Kavanaugh

Brett Kavanaugh is a good pick for the Supreme Court. I would have personally preferred Amy Coney Barrett, but at this moment a guy like Kavanaugh, with a gold-plated resume and a substantial history on the D.C. Court of Appeals, is the smarter choice. If President Trump has more Republican senators next time, and I suspect he will have as many as three more bites of this apple, he can go with someone like Barrett.

Kavanaugh is the wise pick this time for a simple reason -- his record and his history, especially working for Justice Elena Kagan, makes it obvious that Democratic Party opposition is strictly about partisanship and not about principle, hardly a surprising observation to regular readers of this feature but others might learn something. It also puts a number of incumbent Dem senators in the box; do you really want to oppose a central casting judge like Kavanaugh and then face the voters if you're Jon Tester, or Heidi Heitkamp, or Joe Donnelly, or Joe Manchin, or even Claire McCaskill?

Speculation always turns to Roe v. Wade, but I think that's misplaced. The ruling that needs to be addressed first is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which further codified Roe. With Anthony Kennedy leaving the Court, Clarence Thomas is the only justice who was on the original case. I think PP v. Casey matters more. Having said that, the ruling I'd really like to see challenged is Wickard v. Filburn. I wrote about that case here.

No matter what, the next few months should be entertaining.