HORIST: Kavanaugh hearing turns Flake-y

Larry Horist

8 years ago

Senator Jeff Flake often sees himself in the tradition of his late fellow Arizona Senator John McCain &ndash&semi; a bit of a maverick&period;&nbsp&semi; Even as his Senate career is coming to a close, he is living up to that ambition&period;&NewLine;Just as the Senate circus that is sometimes known as the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearing was coming to a close with the anticipated supportive vote of the Judiciary Committee &ndash&semi; albeit on partisan lines &ndash&semi;&nbsp&semi; Flack makes himself the centerpiece legislator (again) &ndash&semi; just as McCain did with his last-minute vote against the repeal and replacement of Obamacare&period;&NewLine;Early in the morning, Flake had seemingly ended all suspense by declaring that he would vote in support of the confirmation of Kavanaugh&period;&nbsp&semi; That appeared to pave the way for a full-Senate confirmation vote early next week &ndash&semi; with the odds in favor of confirmation&period;&NewLine;Following a series of doomed-to-fail grandstanding motions by the unhappy Democrat minority members of the Committee, and an abusively long, pompous and self-praising speech by New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, everything seemed to be in order for the scheduled afternoon vote &ndash&semi; although Booker concluded his remarks with a pronouncement that he would protest by not participating any further in the proceedings&period;&nbsp&semi; He then walked out of the room with cameras clicking like crickets on a summer day&period;&nbsp&semi; &NewLine;In an earlier hearing, he grandstanded by declaring he would release confidential documents and would risk expulsion from the Senate for doing so&period;&nbsp&semi; Turned out that the documents &nbsp&semi;were not classified and there was no chance that he would have been expelled&period;&nbsp&semi; Regardless, he declared it his &ldquo&semi;Spartacus Moment&rdquo&semi; &ndash&semi; a reference to the Thracian gladiator who led a slave uprising against Rome&period;&nbsp&semi; In reality, it was a bit more like one of those hyperbolic self-praising &ldquo&semi;Trump Moments&period;&rdquo&semi;&NewLine;Literally within minutes of the roll call, Flake was seen caucusing with the Democrats&period;&nbsp&semi; An air of uncertainty and apprehension took the session beyond the scheduled time for the vote &ndash&semi; perturbing Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, a man of punctilious punctuality&period;&NewLine;When the session was reconvened, Flack announced a condition on his vote to advance the Kavanaugh confirmation to the full Senate&period;&nbsp&semi; The final vote, he declared, would only come after a brief FBI investigation&period;&nbsp&semi; He basically aligned himself with the Democrats, who seemed to believe they had a lockdown deal through Flake&period;&nbsp&semi; Facing the almost certainty of a Kavanaugh confirmation, the Democrats had been pushing hard for a delay of any kind &ndash&semi; another fishing expedition and more time to rake the muck at the bottom of the swamp &ndash&semi; and now they got it&period;&NewLine;With Flake&rsquo&semi;s vote secured, the roll call commenced, and Kavanaugh&rsquo&semi;s confirmation was advanced to the full Senate by an 11 to 10 partisan vote&period;&nbsp&semi; It appeared that the Democrats &ndash&semi; and even Flake &ndash&semi; had anticipated further action &ndash&semi; perhaps an agreement, a resolution and more specifics on the deal&period;&NewLine;That never happened because crafty Grassley invoked the arcane &ldquo&semi;two-hour rule&rdquo&semi; and summarily ended the session&period; Expressions of confusion spread across the Committee members faces &ndash&semi; especially the Democrats &ndash&semi; like a total eclipse of the sun&period;&NewLine;&nbsp&semi;&NewLine;To understand what had happened, you need to understand the operation of the Senate &ndash&semi; which even few members do&period;&NewLine;First, the GOP needs Flake&rsquo&semi;s vote two or three more times &ndash&semi; maybe more&period;&nbsp&semi; In advance of the up-or-down vote, there will be a couple of procedural votes&period;&nbsp&semi; Someone like Flake could vote in favor of the votes necessary to advance the confirmation and still vote against confirmation in the final round&period;&nbsp&semi; In fact, that is exactly what Flake threatened&period;&NewLine;It also needs to be understood that the deal to delay the vote and call in the FBI is beyond the authority of the deal makers &ndash&semi; or even the Judiciary Committee&period;&nbsp&semi; Flake can use his desperately need vote as leverage to enforce the deal &ndash&semi; assuming that there is a least one other Republican Senator also willing to withhold a vote&period;&NewLine;The only person who can set the time for a vote is Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and he was not in on the deal&period;&nbsp&semi; McConnell agreed to hold off the final vote, but said he would proceed with the preliminary procedural votes&period;&nbsp&semi; Trump, in turn, ordered the FBI to extend its background check with the provisos that it be accomplished in &ldquo&semi;less than one week&rdquo&semi; and deal only with credible issues&period;&NewLine;As could be expected, the delay set off another round of cacophonous complaints from the Democrats&period;&nbsp&semi; In addition to Kavanaugh&rsquo&semi;s judicial philosophy and the accusations of sexual misconduct, Democrats and the media are peddling his alleged teenage drinking habits and his demeanor during the hearings as further cause for disqualification&period;&NewLine;The Democrats demands for an FBI hearing could be a case of the dog chasing the car&period;&nbsp&semi; What happens if he catches it&quest;&NewLine;Their pleas for an FBI investigation became louder and more frequent as the likelihood of such an investigation lessened&period;&nbsp&semi; It was a good political strategy&period;&nbsp&semi; Now that they got the FBI involved, Democrats have to face the facts of such a background check&period;&nbsp&semi; It will not be a real investigation of the kind the public believes because the alleged crime is not a federal crime&period;&nbsp&semi; There will be nothing to turn over to the Justice Department for indictment&period;&NewLine;They are going out and asking the same questions of the same people that the Committee investigators have already interviewed&period;&nbsp&semi; Since all those involved have submitted statements that are covered by perjury, it is unlikely any will change&period;&NewLine;The FBI will then summarize the statements and send them along to the President, who will pass them on to the Judiciary Committee&period;&nbsp&semi; All that will be done in confidence&period;&nbsp&semi; There will be no published report, although you can bet that someone on the Democrat side of the Judiciary Committee will selectively leak information useful to the Kavanagh opposition&period;&NewLine;If that is how it all unfolds, the Democrats will have lost their public relations talking points, and the Republicans will proceed with the vote without the appearance of rush-to-judgment&period;&NewLine;There is also another apparently unanticipated risk&period;&nbsp&semi; The FBI can do what those male Republican senators could not&period;&nbsp&semi; They can inquire into the background of the accuser&period;&nbsp&semi; They can check out her underage drinking habits&period;&nbsp&semi; Has she made similar accusations on other occasions&quest;&nbsp&semi; Did she have any record of emotional problems&quest;&nbsp&semi; Was she promiscuous&quest; If such inquiry seems inappropriate in the &num;MeToo age, we need to understand that those are the same issues the FBI will be checking out regarding Kavanaugh&period;&NewLine;We are talking politics at the highest level, which means that anything could happen in the coming week&period;&NewLine;Larry Horist is a conservative activist with an extensive background in economics, public policy and political issues&period; Clients of his consulting firm have included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman, and he has served as a consultant to the White House under Presidents Nixon and Reagan&period; He has testified as an expert witness before numerous legislative bodies, including the U&period; S&period; Congress and lectured at Harvard University, Northwestern University, Florida Atlantic University, Knox College and Hope College&period; An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries appear frequently on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation&period; He can be reached at <a href="mailto&colon;lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com">lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com</a>&period;&NewLine;