Back when Elena Kagan was being considered for solicitor general in 2009, she answered a senator’s query about gay marriage by saying, “There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage.”
But on the Supreme Court only a few years later, she voted that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
Did Kagan lie, or was she opining on the state of existing law, which at the original time did not recognize a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage?
No Republican politicians ran to cable news back then to shout that Kagan should be impeached for lying because, I assume, most are mature enough to understand the context.
This important history is worth recalling as most Democrats have predictably taken to the hatred, hypocrisy and hyperbole route during a nearly full week of rage since the historic June 24 abortion ruling.
Bereft of facts, many sitting Democrats want members of court’s conservative majority impeached for “lying” during their confirmation hearings about whether Roe v. Wade could be overturned.
This middle school level claim is the zenith of ignorant partisan lunacy, and it's no surprise at who the loudest voices are.
“Every single one of them said under oath that they would actually preserve Roe,” New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ranted to a local station. “That is absolutely fraud, and there should be consequences.”
Widely considered the dumbest member of the U.S. Congress, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was invited to NBC News where she called for an investigation into whether Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh should be impeached.
“I believe lying under oath is an impeachable offense,” the 32-year-old socialist said.
Failed presidential candidate and unhinged leftist Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who actually taught law at Ivy League schools, concurred with the nonsense.
But no, neither of the aforementioned justices promised to uphold Roe. They could not, lest it be a grave violation of judicial ethics, as a nominee cannot say how he’d vote in a case before hearing the facts.
Kavanaugh actually declined to answer whether Roe was correct law, instead saying, “Roe v. Wade is an important precedent of the Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed many times. So that precedent on precedent is quite important as you think about stare decisis in this context.”
Gorsuch, perhaps the smartest judge in America, coherently declared Roe to be “a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.”
This is redolent enough to what Kagan said during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, when asked if she agreed that the court’s rulings in District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago that the Constitution guarantees a fundamental right for an American to own a firearm, specifically for self-defense. She explained that those cases are settled law and “binding precedent entitled to all the respect of binding precedent in any case.”
But last week, in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen, she (wrongly) voted inapposite, and to uphold New York’s heavy-handed gun law, which required anyone seeking a license to carry a concealed gun show “proper cause” to some unelected bureaucrat.
If Gorsuch and Kavanaugh prevaricated, so did Kagan. Cortez and Warren should be calling for all their impeachments. They're not, because they're unserious tribalist goons.
As Rich Lowry wrote earlier this week, “The left simply lost the intellectual and political fight over the direction of the Supreme Court but can’t bear to admit it.”
And President Biden tops them all at denying the obvious, not only arguing that America's inflation is not worrisome and that the US is a world leader in privacy rights for citizens, but calling the ruling that reversed Roe v. Wade a mistake and "outrageous."
Yes, and alas, odious tantrums and bald-faced lies make for better television with biased hosts and audiences.
A.J. Kaufman is a senior columnist with Alpha News. He taught school and served as a military historian before beginning his journalism career, where his writing has since appeared in numerous print and digital outlets. The author of three books, he also contributes to Israel National News, The Lid, and is a frequent guest on various radio programs and podcasts. A.J. currently resides in the Upper Midwest.