Emil Bove and the Kavanaugh rule: Loyalty to Trump dictates judicial confirmations, not qualifications
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But a single event turned the judicial confirmation process into the kind of pure, bare-knuckled partisan cage match it is today: Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, particularly Kavanaugh's
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But back to Bove. There's a reason
Bove is uniquely unfit to serve anywhere in the federal judiciary. The reasons are plentiful. He
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But fitness is in the eye of the beholder. And Senate Republicans have a decidedly different eye than I.
That was clear during Bove's
Bove denied the accusation. But then, after paying brief lip service to the importance of whistleblower protections, he blamed the accuser.
'This is fundamentally a dispute about the challenges posed by the unelected bureaucracy to the unitary executive, and to the people that elected the president and put him in office,' Bove said.
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Translation: How dare this whistleblower go against the imperial president's directives when told by his superiors to follow them?
It's clear that Bove's loyalty lies with Trump. That alone is disqualifying not only for a lifetime judiciary post but also for any attorney who works in the Justice Department, whose clients are the American people, not the American president.
But that loyalty is exactly what ensured his confirmation. Call it the Kavanaugh rule.
In 2018, Kavanaugh appeared at what would be the first of two confirmation hearings in his bid for the high court, demonstrating an aw-shucks demeanor and a desire to steer clear of politics in his answers.
'I need to stay not just away from the line, but three ZIP codes away from the line of current events or politics,'
But after Christine Blasey Ford came forward
When it was Kavanaugh's turn to respond to Ford's claims, he didn't just deny them. His previous affable and apolitical demeanor was gone, and he stormed right into politics' ZIP code and scorched its earth.
'This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups,' Kavanaugh
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'This is a circus. The consequences will extend long past my nomination,' Kavanaugh said. 'And as we all know in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.'
And with that, Senate Republicans who were initially so worried about Ford's accusations that they refused to question her directly,
'Boy, y'all want power. God, I hope you never get it,' Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina fumed to his Democratic colleagues later during Kavanaugh's hearing. Kavanaugh became a justice, and controversial judicial confirmations became all about political payback, not qualifications. And who could more painfully stick in Democrats' craw than Bove?
And that is how we got to a place where a nominee like Bove can become a judge and potentially be one heartbeat away from the highest court in the land. It was hard to watch. But we saw it coming.
Kimberly Atkins Stohr is a columnist for the Globe. She may be reached at
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