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Not since the McCarthy hearings of the 1950s has a Senate proceeding revealed such stunningly sordid truths about the venality of human nature in general and politicians in particular.
Thanks to the intended but abortive auto da fe of the heretofore respected Judge Brett Kavanaugh, all America has learned that Sen. Dianne Feinstein's fellow Democrats went along with her sitting on a sexual assault accusation against the Judge until the judiciary committee hearings were over - only to roll it out at the last possible moment in a transparent attempt to stall his taking office. Instead of criticizing her for hiding the issue until it was too late to investigate it properly, the Democrats declared "I Believe" the accusation even though it was so lacking in detail that it couldn't be investigated much less prosecuted.
Ms. Ford, his accuser, didn't remember where or when the "party" was where the alleged assault took place, how she got there, or how she got home - and the people whom she named as having been present have said under oath that they never attended any such party.
This is not an accusation deserving of a moment's time, precisely because there is no defense against such a vague accusation. When a woman accused Mr. Trump of harassing her at a European event, he was able to show that he hadn't been in Europe at the time. Judge Kavanaugh doesn't even have that - if no dates or locations are given, how can the charge be refuted?
Such "charges" don't even rise to the level of hearsay, but there is nothing save common decency and morals stopping anyone from making them. That's why the American justice system places the burden of proof on the accuser - indeed, the entire foundation of Western jurisprudence rests on the twin concepts of presentation of evidence, and "innocent until proven guilty."
Unfortunately, our modern Left believes fervently in "innocent until proven conservative." We've explained how this vile episode shows the Democrat's standard operating procedure - it's not over until the left wins, no matter what it takes. There is no lie they won't tell, there is no smear they won't use against anyone whose politics they dislike.
Finally, the "stupid party" Republicans are starting to wake up to this fact, and are beginning to fight back. Perhaps the most important accomplishment of President Trump is demonstrating that the best defense is a good offense. By aggressively, forcefully, and emotionally denying that there is any shred of truth to these allegations, Judge Kavanaugh forced America to stop and actually think about how weak Ms. Ford's allegations really were. This reflected horribly on both her and on her Democrat enablers.
As shiny-new are the Republican spines we've seen this week, you might think it's a response to a new threat. Nothing could be further from the truth: Democratic amoral destruction of democratic norms is in no way a recent habit. In fact, even restricted to the national level, it's been reality for longer than most of us have been alive.
The first US Presidential candidate to directly benefit from a burglary - no, it wasn't Richard Nixon (R)! It was in fact his opponent, John F. Kennedy (D).
If this is news to you, don't feel ignorant: it took a full half-century after the 1960 election for the Washington Post to report JFK's political crimes. The Post revealed that Kennedy operatives burgled Mr. Nixon's lawyer's office for documents concerning secret donations and gave the material to Drew Pearson and Jack Anderson, newspaper columnists who hated Mr. Nixon. The resulting "October surprise" helped JFK "win" the election, along with a little conventional vote theft thanks to Chicago mayor Richard Daley.
Nixon grudgingly conceded the Oval Office to JFK because he didn't want American voters to believe that the Presidency could be stolen, but as the Post put it:
Indeed, the mysterious break-in to recover Nixon's incriminating financial documents convinced him that such burglaries were standard practice in national politics. Nixon vowed that he would never be caught unprepared again, and he ultimately established his own corps of hard-nosed operatives to carry out espionage and sabotage, which culminated in the botched break-in a dozen years later at the Watergate office of the Democratic Party.
Mr. Nixon didn't realize that it's OK for Democrats to commit burglary, but not for Republicans. When Al Gore lost a close Presidential election to Mr. Bush in 2000, Democrats continued to accuse Republicans of stealing the election even though repeated recounts of the Florida ballots gave the election to Mr. Bush.
President Kennedy also used the IRS as a weapon against his political enemies. When steel executives raised prices against his request, he had the IRS attack them. In 2011, the Washington Post described Kennedy's "Machiavellian" political style and used his actions as suggestions for Mr. Obama's re-election campaign, as if Mr. Obama needed any suggestions!
Mr. Kennedy's use of the IRS was one of many underhanded actions the Post approvingly reported:
"They were ruthless," one Nixon man said, in Matthews's account. "They scared the [expletive] out of me." They did more than that to Roger Blough, the U.S. Steel president, who defied Kennedy in 1961 by raising prices. "You have made a terrible mistake," Kennedy told him. Subpoenas flew, FBI agents marched into steel executives' offices, and Kennedy spoke about IRS agents examining "hotel bills and nightclub expenses [that] would be hard to get by the weekly wives' bridge group out at the country club."
Kennedy used harsher words than the "socialist" Obama has ever voiced, claiming the executives' "pursuit of private power and profit" showed "such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans." The price increase was rolled back.
"It was a tough way to operate," Bobby Kennedy said, but "we couldn't afford to lose."
Sometimes, that’s how it must be. Can Obama understand that? [emphasis added]
Lyndon Baines Johnson (D), Kennedy's successor, further weaponized the FBI: he ordered J. Edgar Hoover to have FBI agents wiretap Sen. Goldwater's campaign HQ and airplane. The Wall Street Journal article describing this underhanded skulduggery is behind a paywall, but it's summarized at the Free Republic and the full article is here.
In, by comparison, a relatively restrained response, President Nixon tried to use the IRS to attack the Washington Post. He directed the agency to cause them "damnable, damnable problems," but as the WaPo pointed out later, Johnny Walters, the head of the IRS, refused to carry out Mr. Nixon's instructions even though he was a fellow Republican.
Mr. Walters was correct in refusing; he pointed out that it would be wrong for the IRS to do Mr. Nixon's bidding as a political brickbat and that weaponizing the IRS would undermine democracy. Unfortunately, this ethical restraint only works one way: his noble attitude was later undermined by the agency's repeated willingness to abuse its power to help Mr. Obama by attacking conservatives. The WaPo described his angst:
Last year, amid the controversy surrounding IRS scrutiny of conservative groups applying for exempt status, Mr. Walters expressed his concern.
"I'm distressed at what's happening and particularly with IRS," he told the Greenville News. "IRS must be run nonpolitical. Our tax system otherwise will fail and we can't afford that." [emphasis added]
Our readers know how Lois Lerner, a senior IRS employee, masterminded IRS actions against conservative groups who opposed Mr. Obama's re-election campaign. Recent hearings in the Senate and the House of Representatives have shown that Mr. Obama also misused our national security agencies by selectively leaking material they had uncovered as part of their mission to thwart foreign spies. When Donald Trump speaks of being opposed by a "swamp" of embedded employees of his own government, he's simply stating something that's been obvious for decades but which no previous Republican president has dared to publicly point out.
This brings us to the US Supreme Court. For most of our nation's history, Supreme Court nominations have been uncontentious; indeed, earlier Senate sessions didn't even feel the need to have hearings for most of the justices. The consensus was that presidents had the right to appoint any plausibly qualified individual.
The first hotly contested SCOTUS nomination was when Sen. "Chappaquiddick Ted" Kennedy (D) lied about the superbly-qualified Judge Robert Bork, who was wholly unprepared for the scurrilous tactics used against him that created the political verb "borking." A few years later, Democrats followed up this outrage by conspiring with Anita Hill to accuse Judge Clarence Thomas of sexual abuse.
Aside from the unproven nature of the charges against Judge Thomas, at that time big-league Democrats were never criticized for proven abuse of women - JFK, "Chappaquiddick Ted" Kennedy, and countless other left-leaning predators were lauded, while Sen. Bob Packwood (R) was hounded from the Senate for abusing about as many women as the honored Bill "Slick Willie" Clinton (D).
It wasn't until 2017 that the Washington Post discussed the abuse allegations against Bill Clinton in terms which questioned whether maybe he should have resigned the Presidency for committing perjury. Well before the hearings on Judge Thomas, Paula Jones had accused Mr Clinton of abusing her. A joke went around, "What's the difference between Anita Hill and Paula Jones?" "Paula Jones is telling the truth."
The Post reported:
Clinton settled Jones's lawsuit in November 1998 for $850,000, acknowledging no wrongdoing and offering no apology.
There has also been controversy about when a President may nominate a justice, though the Constitution names no explicit limits as to timing. In 1992, then-Senator Joe Biden said, "[I]t is my view that if a Supreme Court Justice resigns [in a presidential election year, such as 1992, when Mr. Biden spoke], President [George H.W.] Bush should ... not ... name a nominee until after the November election is completed."
Yet when Justice Scalia died during Mr. Obama's last year of office, it suddenly became imperative not only for Mr. Obama to nominate a justice to replace him, but to have the nomination confirmed post-haste. Ever since the Republican Senate majority invoked the "Biden rule" to justify ignoring Mr. Obama's nomination of Justice Garland, Democrats have accused Republicans of stealing "their" court nomination.
The Democrats did not have a filibuster-proof Senate majority in 2013 and Republicans were blocking their judicial appointments. Even though Sen. Harry Reid had once said that modifying the filibuster would "destroy the very checks and balances our Founding Fathers put in place to prevent absolute power by any one branch of government" - not particularly true anyway - the Democrats changed Senate rules to forbid filibustering of judicial nominees except for the Supreme Court.
When the Republicans took the White House in 2016 and Mr. Trump nominated Justice Gorusch, the Democrats made it clear that none of them would vote for him. When the Republicans eliminated the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations as the only way to fill the court seat, Democrats accused them of destroying democracy.
Learning no lessons from the Anita Hill spectacle, Ms. Ford's accusations against Judge Kavanaugh have led Democrats to double down on double standards for abuse allegations. Senator Cory "Spartacus" Booker (D, NJ) confessed that he'd groped a woman back in high school without being criticized then or now. Keith Ellison, current deputy chairman of the DNC, has been credibly accused of abuse with far more evidence than Ms. Ford has offered, but no Democrat cares.
Sen. Mazie Hirono (D, HI) told men - including her fellow Senators - to "Shut up," and declared that it was obvious that the accusations were true because Judge Kavanaugh is a conservative. Back in the 1990s, she dismissed credible allegations that Daniel Inouye, then a Democratic senator representing Hawaii, had engaged in sexual assault on Lenore Kwock, his hairdresser. Kwock told reporters she had "forgiven" Inouye, even as she stood by her story. She spoke cautiously: "It could cost me my business, and so I speak with tact and diplomacy."
She's right to be careful - Democrats have engaged in the "politics of personal destruction" against anyone who accuses a Democrat for a long, long time. Shortly after a Sanders supporter tried to murder Republican representatives as they were practicing for a baseball game, Claremont.org quoted Rep. Pelosi:
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi stated: "Somewhere in the 90s, Republicans decided on a politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons, and that is the provenance of it, and that is what has continued."
She apparently has forgotten (or believes the rest of us have forgotten) the utterly false case made against the distinguished jurist Robert Bork, which derailed his nomination to the Supreme Court in 1986, or the scorched-earth, scurrilous attacks on then-judge Clarence Thomas that attempted similarly (albeit unsuccessfully) to block his confirmation to the Court in 1991.
Perhaps even more to the point, Congresswoman Pelosi seems to have forgotten that the phrase "politics of personal destruction" was coined for the purpose of describing Hillary Clinton's mean-spirited attacks against women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault (though, admittedly, it was later resurrected by Bill Clinton himself to rebuff the criminal investigation of him arising out of those credible accusations). Lest we forget, Gennifer Flowers was "trailer trash" in Hillary Clinton's public statements; Monica Lewinsky was a "narcissistic loony toon;" the string of accusations of sexual impropriety were simply "bimbo eruptions;" the woman solicited by state troops for a sexual tryst on Bill Clinton's behalf had to have her story "destroy[ed]."
For decades, Democrats have been called the "evil party" as these attacks on our democratic norms became more and more common. The Republicans have been the "stupid party" for not fighting back.
Like a dying man in the desert suddenly presented with a bottle of Aquafina, many of Mr. Trump's supporters welcomed his ability to shove Democrat's lies back in their faces. They applauded as he forced Hillary to stop accusing him of abusing women by parading Slick Willie's victims in front of national cameras at their debate.
The "never Trumpers" still haven't caught on to why so much of the country supports Mr. Trump - he fights! But he can't do it alone: we need not just a fighting leader, but an entire party full of fighters.
One hopes that Sen. Feinstein's perfidy in sitting on her accusatory letter until after the hearings were over and then leaking it in violation of Senate rules shows that the Democrats have no notion of playing by the rules. Once the rest of the Col. Blimp Republicans realize that there is no lie Democrats won't tell, no smear they won't publicize, maybe they'll understand why Mr. Trump does what he has to do - and start doing it themselves.
The breakdown of our traditional norms of civility will not end well, and Democrats are the primary offenders. If this isn't how we want our politics to be, they must be stopped - which requires all of us to stop them.
Their smears of Judge Kavanaugh have brought us to a decision point. If their abusive attacks stand, they will block any Republican nomination; we won't have a complete Supreme Court, nor any more judges, until the Democrats regain the White House whenever that may be, and thus exclusively leftist judges from now on. That can't be allowed to stand if the Republicans, or conservatives, intend to exist.
It's time for the stupid party to finally take a stand against the evil party, as one! Their united response in defense of Kavanaugh is a great start - now it needs to become a habit.