Today was likely one of the last “controversial” hearings for a judicial nominee for President Trump’s first term.  Judge Justin Walker was before the committee as a nominee to the DC Circuit.  However, much of the Democrats' potential fire was taken away before the hearing even started.  Yesterday, the American Bar Association (ABA), the self-proclaimed "gold standard" of Senate Democrats, rated Judge Walker "Well Qualified."  Judge Walker had previously been rated "not qualified" by the ABA, due to his being just short of the required number of post-law school years of experience. 

Liberal extremists and some Democrats are always finding reasons to oppose President Trump’s judicial nominees.  The reality is they are usually not mad for substantive reasons, but for political or worse reasons.  And these extremists won’t tolerate any dissent.  For example, as Thomas Jipping writes in Democrats take partisanship against judicial nominees to new level in Trump era:

The judicial confirmation process has gotten so twisted, so fast, that the Left is starting to eat its own. Freshman Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), for example, has already been attacked by progressives for supporting too many Trump judicial nominees. Yet one-third of her judicial confirmation votes this year have been NO.

To put that in perspective, it took the 10 longest-serving senators in American history a combined total of 135 years to cast as many votes against judicial nominees as Sinema has cast in less than one. Still, it’s not enough to satisfy the left.

As we celebrate Constitution Day today, it is worth remembering that the Founders carefully wrote the Constitution to ensure that our third branch of government was independent through mechanisms such as life tenure, the prohibition against diminution of salary, and the nomination and confirmation mechanism itself, and that judicial independence is what preserves the Constitution and our system of government.  

Yet many liberals now want to undermine the independence of the judiciary because judges do not always reach the outcomes they desire to advance their progressive policy goals.  

Or perhaps more accurately, they are attempting to redefine judicial independence to mean a judiciary that advances progressive policy goals and interests.  

For years liberals have used the courts to get what they could not get from voters, the President or Congress.  President Trump and Senators like Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham are doing a great job of nominating and confirming judges that respect the rule of law and not liberals' political wishes.  So now liberal politicians are taking to threatening the courts to get what they want.  As the Wall Street Journal opined last week:

When the 116th Congress started last Thursday, all pending nominations from the 115th Congress were sent back to the White House and the nominees will need to be renominated to be considered for confirmation by the new Senate.  The hundreds of nominations sent back to the White House included a record number of judicial nominees, due to Democrats' delay and obstruction.  Tom Jipping of the Heritage Foundation described the problem and the Democrats' tactics:

Thomas Jipping reminds us that the smears against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, while reprehensible, are just the latest of the inconsistent, partisan means by which Democrats have evaluated judicial nominees:

Partisan double standards, ignoring what really matters, smears, turning basic notions of fairness on their head — that is what it means to use “whatever means necessary.” Schumer is keeping his promise of opposing Kavanaugh with everything he has. It won’t be enough.