Democrats, Kavanaugh, and ‘The End of Civilization’
By Andrew C. McCarthy

If they get away with this, the only decent people in politics will be decent progressives.

Judge Robert Bork used to tell a prescient and darkly humorous story about watching Clarence Thomas’s Senate confirmation hearings — etched in pre-hashtag history as the “Thomas–Hill hearings,” in homage to Anita Hill’s role as the Left’s heroic accuser.

At the time, Thomas was a judge of the same eminent D.C. Circuit federal appeals court on which Bork had served. As he viewed Thomas’s “high-tech lynching” in horror, Bork recalled, a friend of his, the iconic Irving Kristol, approached and asked him what was happening.

“The end of civilization,” the judge sadly quipped.

“Of course it is,” Kristol deadpanned. “But it’ll take a long time. Meanwhile, it’s still possible to live well.”

It was a poignant story coming from Bork. A scholar of great breadth, the late judge was a man from another time: a patriot who’d enlisted in the Marines at 17 during World War II and been called back to duty when the Korean War broke out, even as he embarked on a legendary life in the law. In 1987, four years before the Thomas–Hill hearings, the slide from civilization he so lamented — the slouch toward Gomorrah — had started when he himself was mugged by Senate Democrats. This libelous character assassination, derailing Bork’s nomination by President Reagan to the Supreme Court, had been led by Ted Kennedy.

Democrats and Women

Back in 1969, Senator Kennedy had recklessly caused the death of a young woman, not his wife, by driving her off a rickety bridge on Chappaquiddick Island as they sped away from a booze-soaked bacchanal. Kennedy managed to save himself by swimming to safety. He then abandoned the scene for hours, failing to alert police and rescue workers while Mary Jo Kopechne, submerged in the car, eventually drowned.

Ms. Kopechne did not live to see “Me Too.” That “movement,” in which the Left is front and center, was not forged until long after leftists had raised the notoriously lecherous Kennedy to “Lion of the Senate” status. Indeed, it was not forged until 20 years after Democrats, prominently including women’s-rights advocates, closed ranks around President Bill Clinton, Kennedy’s equally lascivious political ally.

According to the victim’s credible accusation, Clinton had raped Juanita Broaddrick in 1978. That was before Brett Kavanaugh could even have pondered hitting underage beer parties. Clinton, at the time, was the 32-year-old attorney general of Arkansas.

His sexual assault against Ms. Broaddrick came to light during the investigation of Clinton’s obstruction of a sexual-harassment suit filed against him by another woman, Paula Jones. She alleged that, while governor of Arkansas, Clinton had exposed himself to her, demanding oral sex. She declined and fled from the room.

There was no Twitter back then but, in the face of Jones’s entirely credible allegation, a top Clinton White House aide set the narrative: “Drag a hundred dollars through a trailer park and there’s no telling what you’ll find.” President Clinton eventually paid $850,000 to settle the matter out of court.

The president was later held in contempt of court by a federal judge for providing perjurious testimony. That testimony was about Monica Lewinsky. It was also through Ms. Jones’s case that we discovered that Clinton, while the 50-year-old president of the United States, had arranged Oval Office sexual liaisons with the then-22-year-old White House intern.

These were just some of the many sexcapades in which Clinton leveraged his physical and political muscle against vulnerable women. He did it because he felt immune, the women having been intimidated into silence. In this regard, his enabler-in-chief was his political partner and wife, Hillary, who took charge of the jihads against her husband’s bevy of potential accusers. Think of them as a Me Too precursor, strangled in the cradle lest Democrats be separated from power.

And how did Democrats respond to this outrageous affront against all that Me Too stands for? Why, by nominating Mrs. Clinton for president and championing her bid to return to power as — what else? — a symbol for women everywhere who challenge our sexist, predatory, Good Old Boy society.



Democrats and Judges

Some more not-so-fun facts. Not that long after Clarence Thomas’s nomination was very nearly defeated, and within easy memory of Bork’s character assassination, President Bill Clinton got to nominate two Supreme Court justices. How did Republicans react? They couldn’t leap on the confirmation bandwagon fast enough. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer were confirmed by the lopsided margins of 96–3 and 87–9, respectively.

See how this works?

Justices Ginsburg and Breyer were well qualified. But, of course, so had been Bork and Thomas. Because they were Democrats, however, Ginsburg and Breyer sailed through. The two things Democrats and Republicans have in common are 1) abiding respect for the personal integrity and legal acumen of Democratic judicial nominees and 2) effective acceptance of the Democrats’ claimed prerogative to “Bork” any Republican court nominee, no matter how impeccably credentialed, no matter their obvious integrity.

Republicans have defeated Democratic nominees, but they never Bork them. They never demagogue Democratic nominees as sex offenders, racists, or homophobes. There are no “Spartacus” moments.

Even when Republicans are put off by a Democratic nominee’s progressive activism, they seem apologetic, quick to concede that the progressive in question adheres to a mainstream constitutional philosophy — one that is championed by leading American law schools and bar associations because it effectively rewrites the Constitution to promote progressive pieties. Old GOP hands then typically vote “aye” while mumbling something about bipartisanship and some “presumption” that the president is entitled to have his nominees confirmed (a grant of deference that Democrats do not reciprocate, and that actually applies only to offices in the executive branch that exercise the president’s own power, not to slots in the independent judicial branch).

Even in 2016, when Republicans blocked Merrick Garland, President Obama’s late-term gambit to fill the vacancy created by the titanic Justice Antonin Scalia’s death, there was no besmirching of Judge Garland’s character. It was pure political calculation and exactly what Democrats would have done if roles had been reversed (minus the character assassination).

The Constitution did not require Republicans to conduct hearings or vote on the president’s nominee — something of which Democrats were well aware, having stonewalled on President George W. Bush’s nominees, saving slots for his Democratic successor to fill. This time, with the 2016 election looming, Republicans had the votes to block Garland and allow the American people, in the 2016 election, to determine whether they wanted the court vacancy filled by Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. It was a rare show of backbone by the GOP, and it undoubtedly won the election for Trump.

No one, however, questioned Garland’s sterling character, patriotism, or legal acumen. These attributes, in fact, created real political risk for Republicans. For the GOP, Garland — then a 63-year-old moderate progressive with a strong law-enforcement background — was as good as it gets (which is why Obama, as a lame duck with no leverage, nominated him). Trump was expected to lose. Had Mrs. Clinton won the presidency, Obama might well have retracted Garland’s nomination. A President Clinton would then have tried to fill the seat with a young leftist firebrand. Do you think Republicans, with the thinnest of Senate majorities in the first year of America’s first woman president, would have blocked such a nomination? I think she (it would have been a she) would have cruised to confirmation.

On the other hand, if Clinton had pressed Garland’s nomination, he’d have been confirmed with 80 or more votes.

That doesn’t happen for Republican nominees anymore. Fifteen years ago, with the Senate in firm GOP control at the start of George W. Bush’s second term, Judge John Roberts was confirmed as chief justice, 78–22. But just a year later, notwithstanding his stellar credentials, Judge Samuel Alito was confirmed by a historically slim 58–42 vote due to near-unanimous Democratic opposition.

In the Obama years, even as it finally dawned on some Republicans that unrequited solicitude might not be the best strategy, the question was still not whether Democratic nominees could be confirmed to the High Court but by how much — Judge Sonia Sotomayor by 68–31, Dean Elena Kagan by 63–37. Those were easy rides compared to last year’s 54–45 nail-biter for President Trump’s first nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch. Like Alito over a decade earlier, Gorsuch faced nigh-unanimous Democratic opposition despite being manifestly worthy, with a proven track record of high-caliber judicial work.



Democrats and Kavanaugh

Now, with Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, we appear to have reached the metaphorical end of civilization that Bork foresaw: when Republicans are disqualified based on unprosecuted, unprovable, and largely unremembered misconduct that allegedly occurred when they were in high school.

Judge Kavanaugh is as superbly qualified as any jurist ever nominated to the Supreme Court. In a dozen years sitting on the same distinguished appellate tribunal as Bork, Thomas, Ginsburg, and Garland, he has generated over 300 opinions. This prodigious jurisprudence is cited regularly by the Supreme Court, as well as by other circuit courts of appeal and federal district judges.

Kavanaugh’s hiring of clerks has been exemplary by any standard of not only scholarship but diversity (more women than men, a healthy percentage of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics). If you’re into this numbers game, as the Left surely is (at least when conservative judges are at issue), it’s worth noting that Justice Ginsburg hired no African-American clerks or administrators in 13 years on the D.C. Circuit and has hired only one African-American clerk during her ensuing quarter-century on the Supreme Court. Of course, she’s a good progressive committed to placing her judicial power in service to the March of History, so the matter is quietly tucked into the Left’s bulging “Not to Be Spoke Of” file. Meanwhile, clerks from Kavanaugh’s eclectic stable are coveted by Supreme Court justices on both sides of the ideological spectrum. He has, moreover, been a stalwart champion of women in the legal profession, as well as girls in his community.

Now, however, Kavanaugh’s nomination is imperiled because of a highly dubious, unverifiable allegation of bumbling, drunken sexual aggression when he was a high-school student: An assault the purported victim never told anyone about — not the police, not a friend, not her parents — until therapy sessions 30 years after the “fact.”

Christine Blasey Ford, a Palo Alto University biostatistician and professor of psychology, is a Democrat — a Bernie Sanders contributor and an anti-Trump activist. Some 36 years ago, when she was 15, she says the 17-year-old Kavanaugh tried to force himself on her, clumsily trying to get her clothes off. A friend of Kavanaugh’s, Mark Judge, who had been watching, jumped on the two of them, allowing Ms. Ford to wriggle away and lock herself in a bathroom until the boys left.

There is no way to prove that this happened. That’s not just because Kavanaugh and Judge, the only witnesses besides Ms. Ford, vehemently deny it. Ford cannot even place it: She doesn’t recall in whose Maryland home it supposedly happened, what she did afterwards, how she got to or from the place. She never breathed a word of it at the time. When she finally told a therapist about it three decades later, notes indicate that there were four assailants — a discrepancy she blames on the therapist.

Then there is the studiously duplicitous way Democrats handled the unprovable allegation, even as they slandered Kavanaugh’s character. The ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, has known about the allegation for months, yet sat on it — all through personal interviews with Kavanaugh and hours of Senate testimony. On the eve of the committee vote on the nomination, she sprang it as an allegation she decided to refer to the FBI while maintaining the anonymity supposedly desired by the victim. As Feinstein knew would happen, Democrats began carping that the committee vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation could not go forward until the bureau ran down the hopelessly stale, impossible-to-verify claim. Meanwhile, the determined-to-remain-anonymous Ford came very publicly forward, after scrubbing her social-media accounts and retaining Debra Katz, a notoriously partisan Democratic lawyer.

This has all the hallmarks of a set-up. If the Democrats had raised the allegation in a timely manner, its weakness would have been palpable, it would have been used for what little it’s worth in examining Kavanagh during his days of testimony, it would be put to rest as unverifiable, and we’d be on to a confirmation vote. Instead, we’re on to a delay — precisely the Democrats’ objective. They want to slow-walk Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote until after the midterms, in the hopes that they swing the Senate in their favor and have the numbers to defeat the nomination.

Republicans should not be rewarding this mendacious gambit by giving the perpetrators the start of what they calculate will be the delay they need. But alas, come Monday, the circus is scheduled to be in town: Anita Hill 2.0.

Or, as Bob Bork would say, “the end of civilization.”

President Trump says a lot of things that are not true and says a lot of other things that are foolish and unsavory. But his supporters are drawn to him, in large part, because he is willing to get into the muck with Democrats, fight them on their own demagogic terms — especially on things he cares about, like his nominees. They are tired of Republicans’ being caught flat-footed, continually underestimating how low Democrats are willing to go, how much they are willing to destroy reputations, institutions, and traditions in order to win.

We’re beyond the time when it’s still possible to live well. If Democrats get away with what they are trying to do to Kavanaugh, the only decent people in politics will be decent progressives; people who reflect the broader range of opinion and civility in the country will not participate in or pay much mind to our politics because it is too savage. The cut-throat operators who do not believe in the Constitution, pluralism, and civility will be running the country, until they inevitably push too far and provoke ugly pushback.

That’s what our politics is supposed to prevent. But you can’t go on forever under circumstances in which only one side of our politics gets the benefit of decorum and the presumption of good faith and rectitude. We can’t continually have judicial nominees — and everyone else — treated under different sets of rules depending on whether they’re Democrats or Republicans.

https://www.nationalreview.com...not-enough-evidence/

The man has been vetted multiple times over the past 30 years with an impeccable record of integrity. It’s clear, the Democraps, angling for and trying to establish themselves as the party of women for the woman vote in November, Produce an amnesiac to come forward after 6 years of foggy memories and attempt to besmirch a very good man. Hold the vote on Kavanaugh next week and move forward.

Reopened, since we seem to be coming to the end of this ridiculous, shameful attempt to derail a qualified candidate.

I sure hope so. It is starting to look like this is at least partially backfiring on the democrats.

One thing I am confused about, though. Assuming any assault occurred like what was alleged, why would this come under the FBI's jurisdiction? Why shouldn't this be reported to the local police? I don't see how the fact that the person allegedly involved is a Supreme Court nominee makes it the FBI's jurisdiction to investigate.

quote:

One thing I am confused about, though. Assuming any assault occurred like what was alleged, why would this come under the FBI's jurisdiction? Why shouldn't this be reported to the local police? I don't see how the fact that the person allegedly involved is a Supreme Court nominee makes it the FBI's jurisdiction to investigate.

Right you are. If it happened, it's a state crime, a state issue. The FBI does not have jurisdiction over the allegation of a sexual assault. What they do have jurisdiction over for the Feds is background checks for federal employees, which is where there may be some overlap. Kavanaugh has already been through 6 FBI background checks and they don't want to get involved in this.

She said she does not remember where, or when, in reality probably who if at all. It’s all BS, everyone knows it. If she doesn’t show up Monday, take the vote.

In case I am ever called up to the SC, I'll go on the record right now. All of the groping I did in high school was consensual.

I wonder if NBC verified this claim with Miranda prior to publishing it or if Facebook postings now constitute verified sources.

Link

Kavanaugh Accuser's Classmate Makes New Claim, Then Backtracks, Deletes Everything

A woman who claims to have been classmates in high school with Brett Kavanaugh's accuser wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday that the "incident did happen" and it was talked about at the school for several days after it allegedly happened.

The story quickly went viral after NBC News published a report on the claim from Cristina King Miranda — who lives in Mexico — titled: "Accuser's schoolmate says she recalls hearing of alleged Kavanaugh incident."

In a now-deleted Facebook post, King had originally claimed:

Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me, I did not know her personally but I remember her. This incident did happen. Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details. However Christine's vivid recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true...

...If Kavanaugh truly has the integrity mentioned by those who support him, then he should be just as courageous as Christine and stop trying to dodge the accusations, admit his actions from so long ago, speak from the heart, and apologize.

However, by the time NBC News published its report, King had already appeared to start walking her claim back, writing in a now-deleted Facebook post:

To all media, I will not be doing anymore interviews. No more circus for me. To clarify my post: I do not have first hand knowledge of the incident that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford mentions, and I stand by my support for Christine. That's it. I don't have more to say on the subject. Please don't contact me further.

King posted similar remarks on her Twitter account, writing: "I graduated from Holton Arms, and knew both Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge. Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me, I remember her. I signed this letter. The incident was spoken about for days afterwords in school. Kavanaugh should stop lying, own up to it and apologize."

Several hours after posting her tweet, she deleted it, and when asked about why she deleted it, she responded: "Hi all, deleted this because it served its purpose and I am now dealing with a slew of requests for interviews from The Wash Post, CNN, CBS News. Organizing how I want to proceed. Was not ready for that, not sure I am interested in pursuing. Thanks for reading."


Shortly after writing on both her Twitter and Facebook accounts that she was not interested in doing interviews with the media, King deleted her Twitter and Facebook accounts.

The Democrats cannot beat Kavanaugh using the rules of law, so they seek out to destroy the man.

Bold type are the points I’ve highlighted.

What Democrats Have Become

It is still true: What begins as tragedy can end as farce. So it is with the case of Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of assaulting her when she was 15 and he was 17.

As of the most recent available moment in this episode, Ms. Ford’s lawyer said her client would not appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee until there is a “full investigation by law-enforcement officials.” Like the Mueller excavations, that could run to the horizon, unable to find anything but unwilling to stop until it finds something.

Let us posit that the one thing not at issue here is the truth. As a matter of law and fact, Ms. Ford’s accusation can be neither proved nor disproved. This is as obvious now as it must have been when Dianne Feinstein and the other Democrats came into possession of this incident.

Surely someone pointed out that based on what was disclosed, this accusation could not be substantiated. To which the Democrats responded: So what? Its political value is that it cannot be disproved. They saw that six weeks before a crucial midterm election, the unresolvable case of Christine Blasey Ford would sit like a stalled hurricane over the entire Republican Party, drowning its candidates in a force they could not stop.

In #MeToo, which began in the predations of Harvey Weinstein, Democrats and progressives finally have found a weapon against which there seems to be no defense. It can be used to exterminate political enemies. If one unprovable accusation doesn’t suffice, why not produce a second, or third? It’s a limitless standard.

The Democrats’ broader strategy is: Delay the vote past the election; win the Senate by convincing suburban women that Republicans are implacably hostile to them; seize power; and—the point of it all—take down the Trump government. This is the “resistance.” This is what Democrats have become. Resistance is a word and strategy normally found in a revolutionary context, which is precisely the argument made by the left to justify its actions against this presidency since the evening of Nov. 8, 2016. Anything goes. Whatever it takes. Brett Kavanaugh is not much more than a casualty of war.

Rather than try to argue or win public issues on substance, the Democrats have become a party that seems to think it can win with muscle alone. Environmentalism emerged in the 1970s as a worthwhile idea that attracted the interest and support of both parties. From Al Gore onward, it became a bludgeon to beat up the other party. Now sexual abuse, an issue originating in utmost seriousness, has been quickly captured and fashioned into a political weapon by the Democratic left.

Politics as trench warfare has relieved the Democrats of the burden of thought. Extending the Pelosi Rule—we have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it—we now have the Gillibrand Standard.

Commenting this week on Ford v. Kavanaugh, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, another 2020 presidential aspirant, said, “I believe it is disqualifying, given what we know.” In other words, what she believes is based on next to nothing.

Put on defense by these accusations, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley unsurprisingly agreed to a hearing in which Ms. Ford would tell her story and Judge Kavanaugh would speak. Then the senators would vote.

Consider the spectacle: Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court, the embodiment of a modern rule of law, is being decided in the Senate by the medieval practice of trial by ordeal, such as surviving immersion in fire or ice. Trial by ordeal was outlawed by the Lateran Council in 1215.

Or worse, the standards of the mob in the Roman Colosseum, turning thumbs up or down on the combatants. Though unlike the Senate Democrats, the Roman mob at least had an open mind.

Incidentally, the standard trope that Donald Trump has degraded our politics? We don’t need to hear that anymore. Or about the moral certitudes of the religious right.

Is there a sadder figure in the modern Democratic Party than Sen. Dianne Feinstein? Elected to the Senate in 1992, Mrs. Feinstein has produced a creditable career. Her above-it-all reputation was never quite deserved, but she has at least performed with dignity.

Now, seeking re-election at 85, she is getting heat from the progressive-dominated Democratic Party in California, the world capital of identity-only politics. By withholding from the committee the accusatory Ford letter that came into her possession nearly two months ago, Sen. Feinstein ensured the nomination’s descent into such a hapless, cynical moment. This will be the most remembered event in Sen. Feinstein’s career.

The Kavanaugh nomination, “given what we know,” has come down to an undiscoverable accusation. The defeat of a Supreme Court nominee on this basis would be a victory for a level of conscious political nullification not seen in the U.S. for a long time. Republicans in the Senate shouldn’t allow it, and voters in November should not affirm it.

Appeared in the September 20, 2018, print edition.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/w...ve-become-1537397973