Congratulations to Judge Brett Kavanaugh on his appointment to the Supreme Court. Whatever else happens in the November elections in this bizarre political climate at least we’ll now have a reliable majority of SCOTUS justices who respect Constitutional originalism. To borrow an expression often used by Barack Obama, the American public has experienced a profound “teachable moment” by the utterly repulsive performance of Democrats and their fellow travelers in the liberal media and the lunatic fringes of the radical left. So what have we learned?
When contrived, theatrical protests by unruly, screaming, costumed political activists disrupted hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee and shouted down elected members, some Senate Democrats described this as “democracy at work.” It most certainly is not. You might call this a form of civil disobedience (or in this case uncivil disobedience.) Yes, peaceful protests are constitutionally protected, but not absolutely. When taken to extremes, invading public or private venues and interfering with other people’s rights, freedoms or property; civil disobedience may be punishable as misdemeanors or even felonies. Representative government is fundamental to our Constitutional republic, wherein the people delegate legislative and procedural powers to those it elects to office. What we witnessed was not democracy but Mobocracy.
During the final confirmation vote in the Senate chamber on Saturday, elements of the anti-Kavanaugh uncivil rabble in the gallery shouted down Vice President Mike Pence with cries of “Shame! Shame” as the vote failed to go their way. Something was shameful but the would-be “shamers” directed their bile at the wrong target. They should have looked in the mirror. Other angry protestors vented their disapproval outside the Capitol and in the streets. This is typical of the mentality and excesses of the so-called anti-Trump “Resistance” that sprung up in the wake of his election in 2016 and still continues. While they have every right to oppose Trump, this isn’t democracy, either. You can call it free speech or freedom of assembly. But it’s a rejection of the democratic process in a free and fair election by those who disagree with its outcome. I remember, in Denver, immediately after the election when anti-Trump fanatics blocked sidewalks and streets in LoDo and highway traffic on I-25 near the Broncos’ stadium. Besides inconveniencing pedestrians and motorists, this tantrum served no purpose but psychotherapy for these sore losers who felt the need to demonstrate their physical “empowerment.” By way of comparison, “Tea Party” conservatives and Republicans who disapproved of President Obama’s polices never behaved anything like this.
Getting back to the Judiciary Committee proceedings, every one of the committee’s Democrats were intransigently determined to block Kavanaugh from the court by any means necessary before the hearings even started. For them, this was a show-trial Joe Stalin would have envied and it drove them to present blatantly illogical and transparently dishonest attacks and positions from the outset. Here are just a few of the lowlights:
The Democrats belabored the question of Kavanaugh’s drinking habits as a very young man. Their point was if he had memory lapses when drunk, he might have sexually assaulted Ford and not recalled it. Therefore truth was on her side. Uhh, no; not necessarily. Kavanaugh’s position was that he was not physically present at that house party during the period Ford described in her testimony where she said she was assaulted. Therefore, Kavanaugh’s memory, good or bad, when under the influence is irrelevant. And Ford’s inability to provide corroboration renders it all moot anyway.
When Democrats, grasping at silly straws, harped on Kavanaugh’s adolescent antics involving things like cheeky yearbook entries, “ralphing,” “boofing,” underage beer drinking and playing drinking games like “devil’s triangle,” they reduced the hearing to farce. This was absurdly designed to be an attack on Kavanaugh’s character now as an adult. I was hoping he’d respond with something like: “Come on Senators, didn’t you do some of that stuff when you were young? I’ll admit that when I was 17 I don’t believe I was qualified to take a seat on the Supreme Court. I’ve matured quite a bit since then.”
Dr. Ford declared that she was “no one’s political pawn.” She may not see herself as such and she had her own reasons to oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation, but from the Democrats’ perspective she clearly fit the dictionary description: “a person used to advance another’s purposes; a tool.”
Sen. Feinstein unethically sat on Ford’s accusatory letter for six weeks rather than sharing it with the committee as Ford had intended. Mysteriously, it was leaked to the press, conveniently, at the last minute to delay the vote on Kavanaugh. Feinstein denied that she or her staff leaked it. The Republicans on the committee didn’t press her. If they had asked her to prove she didn’t leak it, she could have said, “Gentlemen, in our society I’m protected by the presumption of innocence, I have no duty to prove a denial. The burden of proof is on the accuser not the accused.” And she’d be right. But this is exactly the principle that Democrats on the committee denied Judge Kavanaugh. Isn’t that deliciously ironic?
And that goes directly to the question of whom to believe in a dispute of “he said/she said.” The answer to which is: gender is irrelevant in that dispute, just as it is in the case of “she said/he said,” “he said/he said,” or “she said/she said” (in the case of the trans-gendered: “they said/they said”). To reiterate: ultimately it’s about the accuser and the accused. In the absence of definitive evidence or corroboration, the benefit of the doubt goes to the accused.
How’s that for a teachable moment?
Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for CompleteColorado.com.
