THE KAVANAUGH PICK CAN BE POLITICIZED WITHOUT ANY HELP FROM TRUMP OR McCONNELL

On Monday, Brett Kavanaugh was criticized for appearing at a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony at the White House. He'd already been officially sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts two days earlier, and it was clear that the prime-time ceremony was intended as a Donald Trump/GOP campaign rally.

But that was an idea that originated in the Trump White House, right? Surely Kavanaugh just wants to get to work now and will avoid being used as a human bloody shirt by pro-Republican propagandists....

Justice Brett Kavanaugh isn't letting his first week on the High Court throw him off his routine, not when it comes to charity, anyway.

The newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice slipped on a ball cap and rubber gloves to dish out meals to the homeless Wednesday in Washington, D.C.

... Kavanaugh was working with Catholic Charities to help feed people in need.

So we're informed by TMZ, the shamelessly pro-Trump gossip site. And if we think this is a cheap stunt, we're reliably informed that we don't know what we're talking about:

Cynics might see this is as a blatant attempt at image repair after the nightmare of his confirmation hearing, but the truth is ... this appears to be a regular thing for him. The Justice was also seen serving up grub to the homeless back in July with the same organization.

Oh, right. July -- the month when Trump announced Kavanaugh's nomination.

On July 11 -- two days after the Kavanaugh pick was announced -- the Daily Caller reported that someone just so happened to see Kavanaugh serving meals:

A passerby spotted the new Supreme Court nominee on her way home from work Wednesday night, and sent these pictures to The Daily Caller News Foundation. Kavanaugh was serving meals to the homeless outside Catholic Charities in downtown Washington, less than 48 hours after he was tapped to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy.



According to his D.C. Circuit biography, the judge is a volunteer with the St. Maria’s Meals program, which serves hot dinners to the capital’s poor.

That's true -- not only was this mentioned in Kavanaugh's bio in July, it was mentioned in earlier versions of the bio. A Wayback Machine search confirms that a summary of Kavanaugh's charity work didn't appear in his bio as of August 6, 2016, but began to appear about a month later -- just before candidate Donald Trump finalized his second set of potential Supreme Court picks. (Kavanaugh wasn't on either the first or second list from 2016, but he was added after Trump became president, in November 2017.)

Kavanaugh may be utterly sincere about charitable work. But the right is still selling him, even after he was confirmed. If he wanted his tenure on the Court not to be tainted with politics, he'd discourage propaganda like the TMZ story. Let's see if that happens, and let's see how many more stories like this we see between now and, oh, say, Election Day.