Commentary’s Noah Rothman is right. The idea that Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch breezed right through the confirmation process is simply bogus.
The people repeating this talking point are either grossly misinformed or straight-up dishonest.
People are even making this claim now in an effort to prove that the Democratic campaign to destroy Brett Kavanaugh is not political. Democrats just want to know the truth, of course! They don’t oppose conservative justices just because. Why, just look at how easy it was for Gorsuch to get confirmed!
This is utter nonsense. This idea that Gorsuch “sailed through” his confirmation process is to ignore the way Democratic lawmakers fought Gorsuch with dirty smears and mischaracterizations, and well as unprecedented parliamentary tactics.
As Rothman put it in “The Revisionist History of the Neil Gorsuch Hearings,” Democratic lawmakers “mounted the first successful partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee in American history.” That has to count for something.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had to invoke the nuclear option (thanks, Harry Reid!) to get Gorsuch over the line. And that’s just the parliamentarian side of that fight. I haven’t even mentioned the smears Democratic lawmakers launched at Gorsuch.
Democrats questioned Gorsuch about the nonsense claim that he had a history of sexist hiring practices. Gorsuch was attacked for maybe, sorta’, kinda’ being a racist. They said he had a “hostility toward women's rights.” Sens. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., suggested Gorsuch was a liar because he declined to comment on theoretical cases and arguments (hello, Ginsburg Rule!).
Even now, Democratic lawmakers grumble that the seat currently occupied by Gorsuch was “stolen” from Judge Merrick Garland.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tried to stall the confirmation by tying it to the Russia investigation.
“It is unseemly to be moving forward so fast on confirming a Supreme Court justice with a lifetime appointment while this big great grey cloud of an FBI investigation hangs over the presidency,” he said. “The FBI Director testified [Donald Trump’s] campaign is under investigation for collusion [with] Russia.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., was more than happy to push that same line, saying, “Lifetime court appointments can wait.”
Then there’s what the news media said about Gorsuch. They accused him accused him of being a “Date-Rape Frat” apologist. They said he was a “threat to voting rights” and “a disaster for women.” They leveled weak accusations of plagiarism against him. They actually believed Gorsuch was serious when he founded a group in high school called the "Fascism Forever Club."
All of this culminated in what Rothman rightly notes was a very predictable showdown brought on by Democrats:
Democrats knew full well that their actions would force Republicans to finish the work Democrats began under Harry Reid in 2013 and end filibuster privileges for all judicial nominees. They also knew that Gorsuch had the support of some Democratic senators as well as every Republican in the chamber and that his confirmation was guaranteed. They knew a filibuster was doomed, but they were prisoners to the illogical demands of their base voters.
It’s true the Gorsuch nomination fight wasn’t anything near as ugly as the current fight over Kavanaugh. But to claim that Gorsuch just sailed right through his nomination process without getting smeared and slandered by unscrupulous Democratic lawmakers just isn’t true.
It’s a fabrication; fake news, if you will.