I like Biskupic’s work, and she does a good job of discussing the inner workings of the court, given that she has to rely almost exclusively on anonymous inside sources, and has very few ways of determining, in cases where she gets contradictory information, whose account is accurate.
But I thought the piece on Kavanaugh contained far too many speculations and assumptions, of the kind that you’ve quoted here. In another place, she writes:
I’ve read a bunch of Kavanaugh’s opinions and dissents from this term, and nothing in any of them suggested (to me, anyway) any particular or keen awareness of public opinion, or any desire to mollify it by moderating his jurisprudence. She goes on at length about him allegedly trying to please both sides and appear moderate, but unlike some of her other articles on the court, where she connects her claims to court informants, her discussion of Kavanaugh’s “apparent” thinking is almost all just pulled straight out of her ass.
I have no particular love for Brett Kavanaugh, nor for his decisions, but I also don’t think that this is very good reporting.
“Apparently”, “appears”, “seemingly”, and others, these words always suggest outright guessing to me. All I ask is that at least one concrete example be giving that shows what the writer is suggesting. More than one is always better. I understand that in articles like these that there is often going to be a certain amount of personal opinion seeping in. But I need evidence. I too am not a fan of most of Kavanaugh’s decisions. Quite often here on the Dope, I’ll write something that sounds like I am defending Trump or another conservative, when in fact I am usually trying to make a comment on the medias’ poor reporting. This is another one of those times.
Enjoyed it as well. And it was not as opinion-oriented. I will say though, going back to what I said earlier about the Chief Justice essentially having no more power than the others, a few quotes stood out.
What is this alleged “full power” that he seems to have, which the others don’t? As for his legacy, certainly each justice has his or her own after serving on the court. And I understand the shorthand of calling it the “Burger” court, or the “Rehnquist” court, but what about the " O’Connor" court, for example. As each vote counts the same, I think many justices don’t get the credit or discredit they deserve. This is not a vital point by any means, but I just remember Toobin enlightening me, so I brought it up.
There was one “pulling-out-of-the-ass” statement, though.
I don’t know how Biskupic determined that Roberts meant this decision to explicitly give Trump leeway. But maybe I’m misreading this. Perhaps she simply means leeway resulted from the decision…
