Anti-gun Senator Distorts the Law and the Facts in Unsuccessful Attack on Supreme Court Nominee

This week the nation was subjected to an embarrassing and undignified spectacle of obstructionist partisan politics surrounding the confirmation hearings of Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh for the U.S. Supreme Court. The Democrat caucus, understanding that Judge Kavanaugh is an eminently qualified jurist with an upstanding reputation and that the votes likely exist to confirm him, abandoned the norms of the Senate and of civility and resorted to childish and temperamental theatrics. This included talking out of order and over their colleagues, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley; encouraging disruptive and illegal protests in the gallery; and holding up large posters to distract the Judge as he answered committee members’ questions.

But while such demonstrations are merely obnoxious and juvenile, the more serious affront arose from committee members who were either too ignorant or too dishonest to accurately articulate the law and the facts in their exchanges with Judge Kavanaugh. Case in point: arch anti-gun Senator Dianne Feinstein, who grossly exaggerated the criminal use of semi-automatic rifles and mischaracterized the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment precedent to attack the nominee for failing to embrace her political position on gun control.

The exchange came on day two of the proceedings, with Democrats becoming increasingly frustrated at their inability to ruffle Judge Kavanaugh or mount any effective resistance to his confirmation.