Slate "Amy Coney Barrett's Qualifications Don't Matter"

[NRaleighLiberal]

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/amy-coney-barrett-hearings-democrats-senate-game-plan.html

There’s no point in lending legitimacy to an illegitimate process.
By DAHLIA LITHWICK
SEPT 28, 20205:50 PM

ttacking Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s nomination to fill Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, feels like a third rail. There’s seemingly no way to do it without Democrats getting burned with blowback for being anti-Catholic or unfeminist. On a recent episode of Amicus, in a discussion taped just before Trump officially made his nomination, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern are joined by the Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal to unpack what’s in play here, and how Democrats should fight this battle. A portion of their discussion, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, is transcribed below.

Dahlia Lithwick: Does it matter who he names?

Mark Joseph Stern: Yeah, it absolutely doesn’t matter who he names because we already know why he has selected this individual. He’s really gone on TV multiple times and stated his chief criterion, which is that he wants a justice who will hand him the presidential election that we are currently in. He has said over and over again that he will not accept a peaceful transfer of power automatically, that he does not believe the election is necessarily being run fairly, and that he will win once the federal judiciary and the Supreme Court make sure that the ballots, by which we think he means mail-in ballots, are not counted, because he thinks mail-in ballots are fraudulent. I mean, really he thinks they’re just cast by Democrats, but what’s the difference to him? So Donald Trump is looking for a Supreme Court nominee who will, in a quite plausible Bush v. Gore–like scenario, automatically rule for him, nullifying as many democratic ballots as necessary to ensure that he receives another term. That is this man’s stated public goal. I could not care less the vessel he chooses for it. This is what he’s doing, and we know why he’s doing it.

Elie Mystal: And of course, Mark, he’s not even making the choice really. It wouldn’t matter what Trump wanted because the Republicans, the Federalist Society, the arch-conservatives, they’re the ones making this pick. And they, for a generation, have told us what they want out of this pick. They want a woman to be the person who either ends or significantly eviscerates Roe v. Wade. They want a woman to beard them from the constant accusations of sexism that are rife within their movement. And they want a woman to be the one to extend gun laws and to do all the things conservatives want to do. It does not matter which vessel he picks to do this with.

I wonder if we’re already being set up for a trap in so far as the nominee, as of this taping, hasn’t been selected and I’m getting 10 emails a day blistering me for being anti-Catholic or for being anti-woman. They haven’t picked a nominee yet, and already, apparently, whoever that person is is a victim. And so I’m trying to figure out how, assuming it is a woman or assuming it is a person who has made her faith the centerpiece of her legal thinking—it’s a trap for Democrats to engage with any of them, right?

Stern: I don’t really want to touch this with a 10-foot pole, but it’s very obvious that Republicans are licking their chops over the prospect of any Democratic senator saying literally anything about the nominee’s faith, particularly if it is Judge Barrett. And we know this because when Amy Coney Barrett was before the Senate for her hearing to go to the 7th Circuit, Dianne Feinstein, ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, grilled her on her faith and said, “The dogma lives loudly within you,” which, I think, was inappropriate. I think was really stupid. And I think was a massive boon to Amy Coney Barrett’s prospects to eventually reach the Supreme Court because there’s nothing Republicans want more than to be able to play the victim card here. That is what ultimately got Brett Kavanaugh on the court. He turned around and said, I am the real victim. And they’re going to run a similar playbook. This woman is a victim of bigotry, of Democratic haters, and Republicans in the Senate, you have to stand behind her.


snip -sorry for the paywall - this is well worth reading - a really good discussion with some valid points.

[SharonClark]

1. Dems shouldn't go after Barrett at a personal level.

They should reject her because the nomination itself is outrageous during an election period and because of Republican hypocrisy.

[StClone]

2. That and as in another post

...Then turn to the Hatch Act.

Judge Barrett, would you please explain the Hatch Act to the American people. [She does.] Judge Barrett, did Kellyanne Conway violate the Hatch Act on these 60 occasions? [List them. Then after Barrett's response, and just fyi, the Office of the Special Council already convicted her, ask Barrett this.] When Kellyanne Conway, one of the president's top advisors openly mocked the Hatch Act after violating it over 60 times, should she have been removed from office?

Then turn to all the other violations of the Hatch Act during the Republican Convention. Get Barrett's opinion on those.

Then turn to Congressional Oversight...

(more)

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14153695

[keithbvadu2]

3. Yes, she is a woman but her qualifications are that she is a woman who is controllable / controlled.

Yes, she is a woman but her qualifications are that she is a woman who is controllable / controlled.

There are many other women who are independent persons.