Patterico's Pontifications

9/18/2018

Noah Rothman on What’s At Stake with the Kavanaugh Nomination

Filed under: General — JVW @ 3:21 pm



[guest post by JVW]

Over at Commentary, Noah Rothman has an excellent post about why it is important to fight for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and not throw in the towel or, worse, tuck in our tail and hide. Here is how he sees it:

According to Senate Judiciary Committee Democrat Chris Coons, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her when she was a minor, did not want to come forward. In an eerie echo of Anita Hill’s public ordeal, her accusations were “leaked to the media.” With her confidentiality violated, Ford had no choice but to go public. Coons could not say where that leak came from, but he did confess that “people on committee staff” had access to the letter in which Ford made her allegations. Draw your own conclusions.

In a more sane world, the professional feminists would be aghast at the fact that a Democrat (and let’s be real: it’s almost certainly a Democrat) staffer leaked the contents of the letter to the media, thus ensuring that Ms. Ford would inevitably be unmasked and forced to go public. Yet one doesn’t have to be a cynic to reckon that any discomfort or even anguish that Ms. Ford will be forced to endure pales in comparison to the opportunity to torpedo the nomination of a conservative justice. More from Rothman:

[. . . ] For some, this has become a proxy battle in the broader cultural reckoning that began with the #MeToo moment. Quite unlike the many abusive men who were outed by this movement, though, the evidentiary standard being applied to Kavanaugh’s case is remarkably low. His innocence has not been presumed, and a preponderance of evidence has not been marshaled against him. It is not even clear as of this writing that Kavanaugh will be allowed to confront his accuser. At a certain point, honest observers must concede that getting to the truth has not been a defining feature of this process.

[. . .]

The experiences that Dr. Ford described are appalling. Even for those who are inclined to believe her account and think that she is due some restitution, no true justice can be meted out that doesn’t infringe on the rights of the accused. Those in the commentary class who would use Kavanaugh as a stand-in for every abuser who got away, every preppy white boy who benefited from unearned privilege, every hypocritical conservative moralizer to exact some karmic vengeance are not interested in justice. They want a political victory, even at the expense of the integrity of the American ideal. If there is a fight worth having, it’s the fight against that.

That’s the part that I like best. Deep down inside many on the left probably have doubts that Kavanaugh behaved in the manner alleged. Democrats have been said to have serious regrets about forcing out Al Franken on unsubstantiated groping allegations (though Franken was of course undone by the picture of his boorish behavior), but after years of putting up with this sort of behavior from the Ted Kennedys, Chris Dodds, and Bill Clintons of the world they had no choice but to cut him loose. It should therefore come as no surprise that they are seeking the proverbial pound of flesh from the GOP side in return. But just as Democrats lived to regret tampering with judicial filibusters, so too should they be careful about the furies they unleash with this latest stunt.

Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.

– JVW


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