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It wouldn't have ruined his career, it just would've said "maybe we shouldn't give him a promotion to a lifelong job until we thoroughly investigate whether or

• dmix 8y ago
  That's might sound like persuasive way to phrase it but it doesn't represent the reality of the situation fairly or provide adequate context. Most importantly being a Supreme Court justice doesn't protect you from going to jail or from law enforcement from investigating your past behaviour... justices can be impeached. On the inverse of your position we also shouldn't prevent the promotion of people to important roles (this goes well beyond SC justices), having followed every legal rule correctly up to that point, merely because of a last minute allegation. Let alone an allegation that wasn't even brought directly to the attention of law enforcement requesting investigation first but rather to a political opponent of the judge in question. Even if the accusers sound persuasive it sets a very dangerous precedent that would make it easy to game the system and prevent any quality promotions merely based on unfounded allegations. This would almost certainly be open to abuse and hurt ALL political parties during future nominations, for any role, for decades to come. Absent at a very minimum a law enforcement decision to bring charges, the hearings should continue and the matters should be investigated afterwards should they warrant it.
• koolba 8y ago
  Which would inevitably lead to a continuous stream of unprovable, yet also undisapprovable, allegations against every subsequent candidate. We saw the beginnings of that in the clearly fabricated follow up accusations.