Note: This editorial first appeared in the RightWisconsin Daily Update on 10/4/18. Subscribe.
Dear Readers,
Like you, we’re a little distracted around here by the success of the Milwaukee Brewers. As I’m typing this, the Brewers are winning Game 1 against the Colorado Rockies. But as much as we want to escape into the national pastime, our attention is also drawn to a different umpire, and the stakes are much higher than a baseball game.
The Democrats got what they wanted. They got an FBI investigation, the seventh investigation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s professional life. And, as we expected, nothing new was found.
So will Democrats back down and support Kavanaugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court? Not likely. In fact, swing state Democrats are actually coming out against his nomination. It’s no longer the charges against him, but whether he allegedly threw ice across a bar and how vigorously he defended his reputation when he spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Suddenly Kavanaugh, who has never raised an eyebrow before with how he conducts himself, is now considered to lack the temperament to be a Supreme Court Justice.
Heck, some liberals aren’t even willing to do that stretch. Even though the charges against him are unproven, Kavanaugh has to prove that a party that the alleged witnesses say never took place actually never took place – even though there is no accurate description of where or when it supposedly occurred. If he doesn’t prove that something didn’t occur when nobody can provide any evidence it actually occurred, then there will be an asterisk* next to his name forevermore.
Benjamin Wittes, writing in The Atlantic, is willing to take the risk that defeating Kavanaugh will set a terrible precedent:
I am also keenly aware that rejecting Kavanaugh on the record currently before the Senate will set a dangerous precedent. The allegations against him remain unproven. They arose publicly late in the process and, by their nature, are not amenable to decisive factual rebuttal. It is a real possibility that Kavanaugh is telling the truth and that he has had his life turned upside down over a falsehood. Even assuming that Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations are entirely accurate, rejecting him on the current record could incentivize not merely other sexual-assault victims to come forward—which would be a salutary thing—but also other late-stage allegations of a non-falsifiable nature by people who are not acting in good faith. We are on a dangerous road, and the judicial confirmation wars are going to get a lot worse for our traveling down it.
Wittes adds that he would vote against the nomination because of the asterisk factor. “I would also do it because whatever the truth of what happened in the summer of 1982, Thursday’s hearing left Kavanaugh nonviable as a justice,” Wittes wrote. And then Wittes added, “He should remain a nominee, I argued, only if his defense would be sufficiently convincing that it would meet what we might term the ‘no asterisks’ standard—that is, that it would plausibly convince even people who vociferously disagree with his jurisprudential views that he could serve credibly as a justice.”
So for Kavanaugh, the standard is now so high for Democrats that the only way he should be confirmed is if Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who rejected Kavanaugh’s nomination without any consideration, would now support his nomination.
It’s at this point that I’m tempted to agree with Martha Laning, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, who wrote on Facebook, “Really tired of white men not investigating situations before explaining it away.”
Of course, she wrote that on the same day Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tony Evers (the whitest white man we know) said on Twitter he agreed with Baldwin in calling for a “full investigation” and then used the hashtag “#believesurvivors” indicating how much of an investigation he needed to find Kavanaugh guilty. By the way, we’re tired of pale white guys like Evers explaining away misconduct by men, too.
Republicans should approve Kavanaugh’s nomination and end this farce. He has had his good name destroyed in this process, yet he has continued to soldier on defending himself to anyone that will listen. Just because the Democrats won’t listen doesn’t mean they should be rewarded for their behavior.
James Wigderson
Editor
RightWisconsin
