SCOTUS Senate Confirmation hearings

Since I taught federal government classes at community colleges off for 15 years following a 32 yr career in the federal government, I have studied these issues a little more than the average bear. But I confess to being confused and puzzled. How do we get a Supreme Courts containing liberals like Sotomayor and Kagan along with conservatives of the Thomas and Scalia ilk and still have the gall to pretend the established process is not political? You say, “Nobody pretends that. Everyone knows it's political and how it works.” Everyone? Really? Well somebody needs to whisper that to Mr. Kavanaugh. He is sitting in the witness chair of the Judiciary Committee declaring with a straight face that he will follow the lead of EVERY current sitting justice and render decisions devoid of a shred of political influence. He will take his extensive judicial and governmental experience and background, consider the provisions of the constitution and written law along with the peculiar facts and circumstances of a case before him and he will vote for a decision that is obviously correct and apolitical. His only litmus test other than the constitution will be whether his vote is consistent with the answers he gave the Senate Judiciary in confirmation hearing years before.

The big question or issue that seemingly is never challenged is the notion that there can appropriately be a “liberal” versus a “conservative” solution to a given constitutional issue. Are important laws that poorly written that vastly different interpretations of those laws can be drawn by different jurists? If not, then where have we gone wrong in the way we select judges? Why don't “liberal” justices and “conservatives” reach the same conclusions in comparing the facts of a case with written law and the constitution? Had I understood that conundrum, my years teaching federal government topics might have produced a clearer concept of the place of the Judiciary in a fair American republic.