Let’s start here: Hell would freeze over before U.S. Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, Texas Republicans, would oppose Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. So we won’t urge them to back the nominee when a vote comes up, perhaps Friday. They’ll do that anyway. We’ll just explain why, pending the supplemental FBI investigation results, they should vote yes.

1. Kavanaugh’s record for legal scholarship and on the federal appeals bench is solid. The Supreme Court has routinely affirmed his work. His personal life as an adult has been responsible, exemplary; no one has proven otherwise.
2. Supreme Court nominees come from a variety of backgrounds, but most have political party connections. Chief Justice John Roberts worked in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Chief Justice William Rehnquist worked for Barry Goldwater and later in the Nixon administration. Chief Justice Warren Burger worked in the Eisenhower administration. Chief Justice Earl Warren was governor of California. Chief Justice Fred Vinson served the FDR and Truman administrations. That’s the last five chief justices. So let’s stop the nonsense of asserting Kavanaugh is too partisan in his politics to be an associate justice. They’re all partisans, which is how they come to be known as potential nominees. That doesn’t mean they can’t be fair.
3. A political background can be helpful to justices, knowing all the artful designs that go into making law in Congress in addition to knowledge of the Constitution. Kavanaugh has political and judicial backgrounds at the highest levels.
4. He drank beer as a teenager, sometimes too much. He drank beer in college, sometimes too much. Lots of people did, and became solid citizens as working adults. Kavanaugh seems to be one of them. No one has proved otherwise.
5. He has been accused of sexual assault as a high schooler at a party. The woman who made the accusation after 36 years does not know where or when this happened. His accuser named four people she said were there; none recall anything about it. One was a close friend; that friend said she has never met Kavanaugh.
6. The nominee has faced a merciless, unethical confirmation process in which his life has been assailed ceaselessly for weeks in an effort to make him withdraw. He has not withdrawn and should not: That would reward senators who have made a shameful mockery of the confirmation process — most announced opposition before the first question was asked in committee — and by doing so failed to do their jobs. That should not be rewarded.

Most important is this: Senate Democrats’ efforts to destroy this nominee personally ought to be repugnant to every American. We’d tell them ourselves, but we’re 1,300 miles away. “Yes” votes by Texas’ senators would do the job nicely.