You like drama? Stories with strong female voices? Shade in spades? Then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings are the show for you—oh, also because they’ll directly, and significantly, affect your life. Unfortunately, this bit of must-see TV airs when most everyone’s working or watching their kids—so we’ll be here all to recap each day of these monumentally important proceedings.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh spent nearly all of Day One of his Capitol Hill confirmation hearings in rapt attention. Listening, listening, listening. Sitting, bearing fidgety witness to the drama as it unfolded on the dais. But here we are on Day Two, though, like a ubiquitous Real Housewives “friend” turned full cast-member, he twirled into the spotlight. And if he had a Housewives tagline, it’d be this: “Nothing but respect for my precedent.”
Yes, “precedent” was the word of the hour, all the hours—Kavanaugh’s career, mantra, and brand all in one. (At one point, he even said “precedent on precedent”—which is, trust me, the closest Brett Kavanaugh has ever gotten to a rap). Every decision he’s ever rendered? Based on precedent, he told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Every decision he intends to make in the future? Same. “Do you agree with Justice [Sandra Day] O’Connor that a woman has a right to control her reproductive life?” asked Senator Dianne Feinstein (D—Calif.), the ranking Democratic member on the committee.
Kavanaugh paused. “Well, as a general proposition, I understand the importance of the precedent set forth by Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
“What would you say your position is today on a woman’s right to choose?” Sen. Feinstein followed up.
“As a judge, it is an important precedent of the Supreme Court,” Kavanaugh said, leaving little doubt that he is, in fact, a scholar of Housewives in addition to constitutional law. These answers are nothing if not designed to be easily denied later—at the end-of-season reunion, or whilst striking down Roe v. Wade.
Later in the afternoon, Senator Richard Blumenthal (D—Conn.) arrived. He turned Kavanaugh’s love of a precedent reference against him! (Very Vicki Gunvalson!) Sen. Blumenthal proceeded to pull out an opinion of Kavanaugh’s in which he referred to Roe as “existing precedent.” Sen. Blumenthal insisted that he’d never seen precedent qualified like that before: “It’s a little bit,” he said to Kavanaugh, “like someone introducing you to his wife as ‘my current wife.’” Blumenthal tried to extract a guarantee from Kavanaugh that he’d never overturn Roe. That, as the pros put is, was a non-starter.
If he had a Housewives tagline, it’d be this: “Nothing but respect for my precedent.”
Kavanaugh’s marathon evasiveness was enough to make a gal wish for a guest spot from Andy Cohen, whose blithly exasperated, yet effective interview techniques were desperately needed here. I just get the impression that Andy would be able to get decisive yes-no responses on all the important issues—whether Kavanaugh would gut abortion rights, whether he believes Trump can be prosecuted, whether Ramona did attempt to go to Tom’s New Year’s Eve bash. (And then I’d like Sen. Blumenthal to take a crack at dissecting the Bethenny-Carole breakdown.)
Here are some more takeaways from a long, long-winded day:
Fastest turnaround: Zina Bash. We now know the name of the aide sitting over Kavanaugh’s shoulder like a Club Monaco-clad guardian angel. She’s Zina Bash, and she was much more subdued than we saw her on Tuesday. Having to debunk Twitter theories that you were throwing white-power hand signals will do that to a person. Today, Bash barely had hands. Mostly, they manifested as quick blurs whenever she had to scratch an itch or answer an urgent email. If someone handed her a beverage, I feel sure she would have accepted it with her teeth.
Biggest distraction: Silicon Valley celebs.
PHOTO: Drew Angerer
Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey, and Jack Dorsey’s community-Shakespeare-theatre beard were all on Capitol Hill this afternoon, too, talking about their platforms’ roles in 2016 election meddling. Somehow, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) even got into a fight in the hallway with a radio person. Can you imagine what it would have been like to attempt to concentrate on Kavanaugh while all that’s happening next door? It would be like that time you were in the class stuck making up a pop quiz while the rest of the school is at a pep rally—a pep rally where Marco Rubio, who was awarded “Crispest Khaki Creases” at graduation, is about to throw a punch!
Best successor to “moist,” the worst word on the planet: “Undergirds.” I’m not sure how many times Kavanaugh said the word “undergirds” today, but I know it was all the times too many.
Dad move of the day: Kavanaugh on Leahy’s emails. When Senator Patrick Leahy (D—Conn.), in an attempt to catch Kavanaugh in an alleged lie, showed him a printed-out email chain, Kavanaugh went into full-on naïve mode, blinking into the middle distance and repeating the name of a one-time Republican Senate staffer—“Mir-an-da?”—in the befuddled tone of a medium-developed toddler. Clearly, he’d practiced this response—but not in debate prep. Rather, it’s a move ripped from the official two-point fatherhood playbook.
When one of your daughters gets invited to a sleepover at the home of a friend you’ve deemed “fast,” here’s what you’ve got to do: Step one: “Lose” the invitation. Step two: When confronted, feign innocence: “An invitation from… who? Mir… an… da? The one who has her own vape pen and the boyfriend who drag races? Nope, I didn’t see it, sweetie! Let’s go hoop it up instead!”
Burn of the day: Senator Amy Klobuchar (D—Minn.).
PHOTO: Bloomberg
Sen. Klobuchar is on a two-day winning streak for the best daily zing. Today, she grilled Kavanaugh on his established reluctance to investigate or prosecute sitting presidents. The exception to his opinion, Kavanaugh once said, would be if the president did something “dastardly.” But as Sen. Klobuchar pointed out coolly, “How do we know something is dastardly or not if we can’t even investigate it?” Klobes! Rip that teeny little mic right out of the podium, then go ahead and drop it.
Most hilarious tactic: The Tremendous, Stupendous Brett Kavanaugh Loves Women Parade! Senator Orrin Hatch (R—Utah) may have been shaken by women on Tuesday. But a new dawn broke, and on Wednesday, he was like, “You know what? Women are good!”
Sen. Hatch’s allotted time was spent hyping Kavanaugh’s deep commitment to gender equality. “They say that you are one of the strongest advocates… for women lawyers,” Sen. Hatch said, adding, “The majority of your clerks in your office have been—women!” You should know he said “women” there with such a pure sense of awe, it seemed like he might have been less shocked if the clerks had turned out to be goats.
Giver of fewest f—s: Senator Mazie Hirono (D—Hawaii).
PHOTO: Zach Gibson
Whether she was expressing frank skepticism at Kavanaugh’s inability to remember a raunchy office email chain at one of his former jobs (eyebrows at 30,000 feet), slicing through his verbosity (“I think that’s a complete answer, thank you”), or eviscerating his support of a parental consent requirement for a minor’s abortion in a specific case (“Her parents were beating her up! How could you expect parental consent?”), Sen. Hirono was not having the bullshit this eve. Her turn didn’t come until dinnertime, and while everyone else in the room looked beat, and Kavanaugh was probably desperate for his linguine alla Heinz at that point, Hirono must have had a well-timed protein snack, because she looked like she could have gone until the midterms.
Kavanaugh will see her and her brooch in his nightmares. You’re welcome, Brett. Good night.
Megan Angelo writes about TV and is the author of the novel Followers, which will be published in 2019. You catch her Kavanaugh recaps on Glamour.com all week.
MORE: This Is Must-See TV: All the Drama You Missed on Day One of Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation Hearings
