CNN anchor and former Obama official Jim Sciutto said on Thursday that the "gang rape" accusations made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were part of "politics" in Washington.
Sciutto suggested Kavanaugh could have responded differently – with more of a "judicial temperament" – when he was defending himself against accusations of sexual misconduct during a Senate Judiciary Hearing last week.
"This is a person being considered for a lifetime position," Sciutto said. "This is Washington, this is politics. Political candidates have been accused of horrible things for years."
Sciutto's remark came in response to CNN political contributor Scott Jennings saying Kavanaugh responded "exactly" as most Americans would if falsely accused of gang rape.
"To these law school professors who signed this [New York Times] letter, I wonder how they would react if someone showed up on their campus and ran a three week, or four week, campaign to call them a rapist, a gang rapist, a drunkard. I don't think they would react very well. I wonder what their temperament would have been?" said Jennings, who served as a political appointee in the George W. Bush administration.
"To be honest, I think Judge Kavanaugh reacted exactly as most Americans would react to being smeared. If someone said the things about me they said about him, I think I would have asked somebody to step outside," Jennings said.
Political commentator Margaret Hoover, host of PBS' "Firing Line," pushed back on Sciutto's comments.
"Politicians have been accused of far worse, but they're politicians," she said. "They're used to taking the sling, throwing it back ... he has a political background but he's never been on the line like this before."
Kavanaugh has categorically denied all of the accusations of sexual misconduct made against him, calling them "last minute smears" in an attempt to derail his confirmation.
When asked about Kavanaugh's temperament during the hearing last Thursday in which he was asked to defend himself against the accusations of sexual misconduct made by three women, including Christine Blasey Ford, Jennings said Kavanaugh's record, not his actions under fire, should represent his temperament.
"I think his temperament is best judged by his 12 years on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals," Jennings said.
Hoover said a person should not be expected to uphold "judicial temperament" when they are "in the cauldron."
"It's almost a non sequitur to [compare] judicial temperament and your temper in a moment like this, when you're in the cauldron," Hoover said. "I think this notion that one's temper in a very hot heated political cauldron somehow says something about their judicial temperament is a total non sequitur and unfair."