Tribalism

The incontinent Grey Lady becomes worse with each passing day.  Thomas Friedman whines about tribalism, but then lets loose with this tribalist outburst:

Brett Kavanaugh defended himself the other day with the kind of nasty partisan attacks and ugly conspiracy theories that you’d expect only from a talk radio host — never from a would-be justice of the Supreme Court. Who can expect fairness from him now?

Note first the gratuitous smear against talk radio.  In an hour of Dennis Prager or Michael Medved or Hugh Hewitt there is more wisdom and good sense than in all the piss-poor Op-Ed pages of the NYT on any given day.  

Friedman is also doing the same stupid thing Hillary and Dianne Feinstein have recently done, namely, expecting Kavanaugh to behave in a super-calm judicial manner when he is defending himself against vicious smears.  If Kavanaugh had displayed his judicial temperament in his self-defense, his Democrat enemies would have taken it as proof of guilt.  "Any normal person would have defended  himself with passion against such grievous charges! So he must be guilty!"

A judge in the execution of his judicial duties must be impartial, which implies that he cannot be party to the dispute he is adjudicating.  To demand that Kavanaugh display his judicial temperament in his self-defense would be like demanding that a defense attorney not advocate for his client but play the judge and present both sides of the case.

Nasty partisan attack? K. is the victim of a nasty partisan attack. When he said that the animus against him was in part fueled by the desire for revenge by the Clinton gang he was simply pointing out what should be obvious to any objective observer.  Hillary was supposed to win. It was her turn.  But then along came Trump. The Left lost its collective mind. K. is a Trump nominee. Obviously, the Left's mindless hatred of Trump is part of the explanation of the vicious attack on K.

Another and larger part of the explanation is that the Left cannot abide a SCOTUS justice who honors the Constitution as she was written.

No link for you, buddy.