The Supreme Court Show

In Supreme Court nominations, as in other things, Donald Trump is the master of lifting veils and making subtext text. Normally a president facing a Supreme Court vacancy makes a big show of seeking out the Most Qualified Nominee and insisting that the process should be all about résumés rather than mere politics. Meanwhile, beneath that surface everyone understands that a nomination battle can be as political as any election, with sex and race and looks and charisma mattering as much as judicial acumen.

With Trump, though, we are mostly being spared the bluff about how only qualifications matter. Because cultivating serious judges is one of the few things conservatism does well, the president has a host of qualified nominees to choose from, and to his credit he has eschewed the callow or corrupt choices that his critics feared. But his White House is also frank about the fact that the boss’ interests extend well beyond the résumé, that he’s looking for a certain look, a personal rapport, an easy confirmation. And in narrowing his list (apparently) to a final three, he’s given us a contest that resembles a reality television finale or a Republican primary — but I repeat myself.

First, in the traditional establishment-front-runner role, you have the eminently qualified Brett Kavanaugh, darling of the legal-conservative community, bearing an Ivy League CV, a long record of rigorous opinions and decades of Republican experience. In GOP primary terms he’s George W. Bush in 2000 — unless he fails, in which case he’s Jeb! in 2016.

Then in the role of the social conservative insurgent, you have Amy Coney Barrett — newly appointed to the federal bench, famous for having her Catholic commitments crudely criticized by Dianne Feinstein, personally appealing because she’s managed to produce impressive legal scholarship while raising seven children (two adopted, one with special needs). In our primary typology she’s basically what religious conservatives hoped that Sarah Palin would be, before the Alaskan started giving interviews.

Third, in the role of the populist dark horse, you have Raymond Kethledge — a hunting-and-fishing Michigander, a handsome central-casting judge who worked his way through law school and co-wrote a self-help book, a proud outside-the-Beltway type who apparently has the charm required to ace an interview with the president. In primary terms he might be John McCain in 2000 or Lamar Alexander in 1996 — or maybe, in the president’s mind, the judicial version of Donald Trump in 2016.

These summaries are all unfair, of course; none of the contenders really resemble the doppelgängers I’ve given them, and all of them deserve to be judged on their records rather than being slotted into “Judicial Survivor” roles.

So who has the edge? A week ago I would have suggested Barrett, since we know she can survive a hostile Senate grilling and the politics of her appointment seem ideal for a White House that could use a liberal freakout over her fecundity and faith to encourage religious conservatives to show up for the 2018 polls.

As a betting matter, I give the edge to Kavanaugh but I wouldn’t want to have money on the outcome. And if I were the one choosing between them? Then I would probably go with the establishment pick as well, preferring Kavanaugh as more of a known quantity and not minding his possible resemblance to John Roberts, whose judicial restraint, which frustrates some conservative activists, I generally admire.

But my real preference is still for Barrett, and for reasons that, if I’m being honest, have a lot in common with the president’s focus on the judge-as-personality. I have enough friends at Notre Dame vouching for her legal chops to give me confidence that she deserves the job on the merits. But I also suspect that the combination of her sex and her religious beliefs would give her more fortitude than a male justice on the one issue where I want judicial action, not restraint: Overturning our inhumane abortion settlement.

And in an age where the court’s role is destined to remain outsized, where jurists become icons and celebrities, I make no apology for desiring a prominent embodiment of the possible marriage between female empowerment and religious conservatism — the marriage that might ultimately save our culture, if it’s ever to be saved.

If that’s identity politics, make the most of it. This woman’s place is on the court.