Powerline's John Hinderaker points out the ridiculous and partisan downgrade of Brett Kavanaugh's rating by the ABA from "well-qualified" to "qualified."

No explanation, of course, as to what Kavanaugh has done since last year to cause six committee members to change their ratings.

Kavanaugh was interviewed on behalf of the ABA by a divorce lawyer named Marna S. Tucker, who then testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of the ABA. The Washington Times has more on Ms. Tucker:

Ms. Tucker has donated more than $10,000 to Democratic candidates and causes, according to Federal Election Commission records at www.politicalmoneyline.com, a Web site that tracks campaign contributions. She has never given to Republicans, according to the site.

The Washington Post described her as a "prominent liberal" in 1991 and the following year noted her friendship with Hillary Rodham Clinton, now a Democratic senator from New York.

Ms. Tucker also is a founding member and board director of the National Women's Law Center, an organization committed to abortion rights and other liberal causes.

It's easy to see why the ABA chose her to represent the organization's views before the Judiciary Committee.

FOX News' Charles Krauthammer was more direct on Special Report's panel discussion:

I think the ABA, the American Bar Association, is what's on trial here.

They changed the way they assessed him, from essentially an A to a B, over one year. Now, Kavanaugh didn't change in one year. He didn't lose his legal reasoning over one year. He didn't have shrinkage of his neurons over that one year. It's the ABA that changed.

So, how do you get a different rating a year after you had an A rating last year? And the answer is, either the ratings are arbitrary, or they're corrupt. They're arbitrary if, as the ABA is saying, you had a different committee and you might have had different people, in which case how can you -- you trust any of its judgments?

But it's corrupt if there was a change in the mood on that committee, and people, with the president's ratings down and more hostility to the administration, decided to go after this candidate, and decide to do endless questioning of people who knew him.

If you do endless questioning of people who know you or me, you're going to end up with a finite number of people who are going to be negative on you. And they -- they cite these negative reports. They -- they leak them to the press, and, presto, a downgrading of his assessment.

It's a corrupt process. And I wish that the administration had stuck with its promise of abandoning it years ago.

Krauthammer is exactly right, the administration made a mistake in citing the ABA ratings for earlier nominees. They should have stuck with their initial plan to do away with the ABA as part of the process.