It was Sol Wachtler, Chief Judge of New York State, reflecting on the power of impersonal bureaucracy over the individual, who said that “district attorneys could get grand juries to indict a ham sandwich”.

You, sir, are the spiritual leader of an evangelical church whose members I understand number in the millions?

I am.

May I ask its name?

You may ask, but I’m not going to answer you on TV. We’re a religious organization, and the IRS has rules about advertising. We can’t afford to lose our tax-free status.

But I would recognize the name?

For sure.

And you are here to discuss with me the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be a justice of the Supreme Court?

It’s my pleasure.

What, then, briefly, is your position on this nominee?

I have none.

What do you mean? I have read that your church is mounting a campaign to push his appointment through as quickly as possible. And you just said …

I just said I have no position on the gentleman himself. We are determined to get him approved, but that doesn’t mean we have any opinion about him as a person. We have essentially no information about him. What he represents to us is a vote to repeal Roe v. Wade, and that’s our only goal.

You mean that literally? If it should turn out that he did what Dr. Blasey Ford accuses him of, that he had so little consideration for another person’s well-being or pleading for mercy, that would have no effect on your position?

Correct. This is not about Dr. Ford, or about Judge Kavanaugh; it’s about the babies. Those poor helpless victims of a misbegotten law passed by Godless Democrats when they were in the majority.

And the Republicans who voted with them out of conviction, or for whatever other reasons.

Outnumbered and forced to surrender, after a valiant fight.

May I ask whether these are the same babies for whose welfare you will instantly wash your hands of responsibility once they have emerged from the womb by denying support to single mothers unable to find a job or hold one in the face of nagging requirements that they present themselves at various enforcement agencies at times when their employers need them? Are they the same babies who will then grow up in dangerous poverty-stricken neighborhoods where they will learn to be crooks and worse in order to survive?

That will be their choice, not ours. Every soul is responsible for its own conduct. The rules are the same for everyone, rich or poor. We have only to follow them to be accepted by Jesus.

And do you think Jesus is happy to see you working with a protégé of a man who is busy piling up government debt in order to give his buddies larger mansions and longer yachts — debt that these same children will eventually have to find a way to pay if they don’t get blown up first?

I think that’s a contentious statement, not a question. I would have to attribute your attitude to the Deep State conspiracy that has been resisting this presidency since its inception. What has Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination got to do with tax cuts? We have no idea what his opinions are about tax cuts. Nobody has asked him.

Oh, yes, they have. But his handlers have refused to make the answers public. They have chosen to keep a seal on thousands, maybe millions of pages of opinions and speeches that are supposed to be on the public record, having been commissioned and paid for by taxpayers. You don’t seem to be concerned about that.

I told you, it’s simple. It’s entirely about the babies. The fetuses, to be more precise. A guaranteed vote against Roe v. Wade on the court, to be exactly precise.

You mean that Judge Kavanaugh could be Jack the Ripper himself and that would make no difference? And Dr. Blasey Ford’s years of suffering count for nothing in the final accounting?

Correct. You have finally understood.