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Quote of the Day: Fighting Back
“Christine Blasey may have been sexually assaulted, he said, but not by him, adding that he intended no ill will to her or her family. ‘The other night Ashley and my daughter Liza said their prayers, and little Liza—all of ten years old—said to Ashley, ‘We should pray for the woman.’ That’s a lot of wisdom from a ten-year-old. We mean no ill will,’ he said, choking up. The hearing room was full of people crying. Kavanaugh’s parents were there to support him and could barely maintain their composure. Watching their anguish over their only son’s ordeal was brutal for the other members of Kavanaugh’s team.” — Justice Brett Kavanaugh, from Justice on Trial, by Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino
The last thing that most of us would wish for is to re-experience that moment when we watched the devastation that the Democrats tried to inflict on the life of Brett Kavanaugh. When he choked up, I felt tears in my eyes. My heart ached for him, for his family and friends and even for the country. How had we come to this moment?
I’m posting this quotation because I think many of us could be reaching a saturation point: how can the ugliness, lies, and irresponsibility of the Left and the Democrats possibly get worse? It’s so tempting to just shut it all out, to inure ourselves to the nightmares that are called “politics” in the 21st century. But we simply can’t.
The next year will be a spiritual and ethical test for those of us who believe in this country and its values. We can either cave in, walk away or throw up our hands—who could blame us?
Instead, we have to stay united against hatred, evil and lies. We have to speak to truth and justice. If we hang together, we will remain strong. Do it for Brett Kavanaugh and his family. Do it for your family. Do it for the country. Do it for the next Supreme Court justice nominee.
Don’t give up.
Published in Politics
I have to admit I’d be sorely tempted to file a civil suit against her for slander. No doubt it would be dismissed as she quickly became a “public figure”, thus immune from lying . . .
A Democrat-approved public figure, yes, is certainly immune from prosecution for, well, for nearly anything. Jane Fonda says that if the left likes you, you can do just about anything and get away with it. Teddy Kennedy agrees. So does Hillary Clinton.
According to Tom Daschle, however, being a Republican public figure makes you MORE likely to be prosecuted for, well, for nearly anything.
I am just trying to image what the play book and the vitriol the left is going to deploy when President Trump nominates Amy Coney Barrett for the RBG slot.
By play book I truly believe that that the radical left is well funded, organized, and has operational scripts ready to go for anyone they suspect that Pres Trump is going to nominate. You get hints of this from Molly’s book that they knew what they were doing, and coordinated at all levels….. from the street trolls, up the members of the Judiciary Committee.
I sometime wish that the Republicans would start to get smart and have both infiltrating sources and pys-op counter measures ready to employ.
The Acolytes of Alinsky, in their march to utopia, are not taking half measures.
Umm… didn’t people like French who found the allegations plausible-sounding in some ways, but nowhere near plausible enough to meet a decent burden of proof, do exactly that?
Evidentiary standards are important, and the kind of slight evidence that might have left a young woman more hesitant to be around a young, drunk Kavanaugh, or may have left parents uneasy to let their daughters around a young, drunk Kavanaugh, is nowhere near the level of evidence needed to punish someone years after the fact.
Circumstantially, there are work-hard, drink-hard, play-hard (even sometimes also pray-hard!) Ivy-League bros who do pull stunts like what Blasey-Ford described. As conservatives like to say in so many other cases, stereotypes exist for a reason and it’s better to be safe than sorry. But classically-liberal values demand that the evidence mustered (even if it is circumstantial: sometimes enough interrelated circumstantial evidence builds a strong case out of individually weak pieces) to punish someone be much, much stronger than the evidence prudent, risk-averse people might act on in their individual judgments. The benefit of the doubt we must overcome to justify punishing someone is much, much stronger than the benefit of the doubt prudent people (especially, as conservatives keep emphasizing, prudent young women) must overcome in order to act on their “Spidey Senses” or “gift of fear”.
As the French man said,
Me, I felt sorry for Kavanaugh up there. I didn’t think he deserved to be laid low by such a weak case, but I also suspected a quite reasonable fear of illiberality from the left kept him from being 100% honest on the stand. I don’t blame him — if he protested too much, it was under the pressure of an already-illiberal attack. I think Trump’s observation that Kavanaugh may have had some problem drinking in his youth, which doesn’t always lead to the best behavior, rang true. But it didn’t ring true with the kind of clear, specific evidence that’s needed to punish someone so long after the fact.
Part of me hopes what happened to Kavanaugh is why Trump let him go first. That both he and Kavanaugh knew something like it was coming and were protecting ACB and her family. But, in the long run it won’t matter. The Left will try to destroy the next Republican nominee in any case. They have no scruples and no shame.
This point is very important, Midge. Thank you for raising it. And if he wasn’t completely candid, he had good reason. Thanks. (Good to see you!)
One very liberal acquaintance kvetched that he knew Kav to be guilty because he defended himself too much, and further claimed that Kav getting angry was proof positive that he was “temperamentally unfit” to be on the court. In other words, in the eyes of this acquaintance, once Kav was accused he was guilty and should have admitted it. When I pressed the point, my acquaintance proved a squish, basically admitting that there was nothing Kav could have done in his eyes to improved himself. If he defended himself more, he would have been more guilty, more angry, more unstable; if he refused to defend himself at all, he was tacitly admitting guilt.
There have always been people who enjoyed attacking safe, socially-approved targets, whether those targets be awkward and unpopular 8th-grade girls, suspected witches in Salem, Jews in Nazi Germany, or Brett Kavanaugh in America today. The ostensible reasons why the target is attacked varies; the psychological motivations have a lot of commonality.
Which seems like a great reason to rely on stuff like standards of evidence and benefit of the doubt — which admit we don’t know things for certain, and that when we act on (admittedly already uncertain) knowledge it must meet a minimum bar of relative certainty — in order to judge these things.
Because we do not truly know. We know why Ford’s accusation seemed suspicious, but we cannot prove there was nothing to it, nor should we, since the burden of proof should be on the accuser (which is where it ended up being — Kav was confirmed), not the accused (which is where partisans of any stripe often wish the burden were when someone they’re partisan against is being accused).
I wonder whether women are more susceptible to this type of incorrect recollection, specifically related to memories of some sort of physical or sexual assault.
I never found Blasey Ford credible because I myself had some traumatic unwanted sexual experiences when I was a teenager and unlike her, I could tell you who, where, when and what we all were wearing. I’m younger than that old trout Blasey Ford but it’s still about 25 years ago. There’s nothing wrong with that woman’s memory.
Physical vulnerability is a real thing I’ll admit. Most men are physically stronger than most women.
But physical strength is just one tool in the box. Some women learn early on that if they cry and look frightened it can get them out of a bit of bother when necessary. I can’t believe some men fall for this nonsense. My own uncle was completely taken in by Blasey Ford, the moron.
Actually, I think the bolded should read: “They must assume as long as a Republican is in office ….” I don’t think the Left would have worked with a different Republican any better than they have with Trump. Yes, Trump brings some unique problems to the table and has made it bit easier to oppose him; I won’t deny that. But I firmly believe the Left would have found something to oppose about any Republican president. None of them would have found favor in their eyes – none.
There were and are many of us that have tried to support his overwhelmingly correct policies and not whitewash his character. I don’t think that’s unconscionable. I think the tribal animus of Trump supporters, in their treatment of people like Paul Ryan when he said Trump’s statements were the textbook definition of racism, or Ben Sasse, who was almost primaried out of his Senate seat for speaking what he honestly saw as truth to power, is what is unconscionable. I think dozens of the Republican House and state level officeholders that were purged in the last election could have retained their seats if our party had tried to be more of a big-tent concerning one’s position on this issue. I know we won’t agree on this and I know it’s getting old, but I still rise to the challenge. It’s hard to be a lily-livered Republican.
To some degree, I have to agree @pettyboozswha. I’m uncomfortable at the expectation that we all need to get in lock-step, but there are also those who go out of their way to stop him. Either side can hurt conservatism, and both need to find a way to live together. I know that I’m getting tired of the battle.
I’m just not sure, @weeping. The virulence and obsession towards Trump is like nothing I’ve ever seen with any president. Yes, the Left would have resisted anyone, but I don’t think it would have been as crazy with someone else. But we can disagree. ;-)
The way I see it, most of us regular folks — heck, even many pundits — lack the clout it would actually take to stop him. So how often does treating someone who’s not already aboard the Trump Train as an obstacle which must be run over lest the Trump Train somehow be threatened actually succeed in protecting the Trump Train, rather than just further alienating those who aren’t already on it?
@susanquinn and @weeping, I do think that any/all Republican leader(s) would have been/will be resisted to the point of lawlessness: the left really truly believed that Obama’s tenure set them up for life and that they would be able to redesign the country through Hilary. (In that regard, both Hilary and Trump were placeholders.) She wasn’t going to really be in charge in any case – so the fact that she wasn’t elected was the real trigger for these follow-on crimes. (And she knew she had/has to protect herself and her buds from going to jail, maybe.) I don’t think they are anywhere near done. There is sooooooooo much money ready to be spent to get the US in synch with the globalist totalitarians in the EU. But that’s another rant. Sorry.
The ongoing dismissal, rude attacks, and even “reading out of the movement” of longtime conservative allies for not being sufficiently pro-Trump is something I have found dismaying and harmful, and often horrible. Yes, I get that some (Mona Charen, for instance) were engaged to a degree in the same thing, but not all were or are, and for many others they have had solid reasons to be highly critical of Trump and his policies – we do well to heed them.
No need to apologize, @eodmom. I think we just might not be in full agreement about the degree of the insanity. And I agree–I’m quite sure they’re not done, not by a long shot.
That’s a terrific question, one I doubt that the persistent folks could answer. Or they might say they’ll just keep trying until everyone is fully alienated. Sorry. I think it must be time to get ready for bed.
I suppose people who’ve been so egregiously mistaken about the intractability of the Left, Trump’s chances in 2016 and his approach to the presidency (authoritarian impulses my bahookie) might eventually be right about something…
The predictions business should usually be left to the bookies, that I’ll grant. But when you get a pundit into an area where they actually know their business, then they’re worth listening too.
In a semi-related vein, I’m interested in how this new kerfuffle is going to play out between David French and Evan McMullen, as French is fighting back over McMullen taking Max Boot’s side in his current battle with National Review:
McMullen, of course, was the person the #NeverTrump crowd eventually settled on as their third party candidate for president, after briefly trying to get French to enter the race in 2016, and the split has been growing wider and wider on the #NeverTrump side over the past year, between those who are still anti-Trump, but have been trying to maintain their past conservative beliefs, and those who have decided that opposing anything Trump does is more important, and have gone all-in as Boot and McMullen have with backing almost all of the Democrats’ platform, even if they hope they won’t have to claim Liz Warren is the ‘true conservative choice’ in 2020 over Trump, instead of Joe Biden.
They’re coming after everyone on the right now, including NR and anyone who shows any support at all for anything Trump might happen to back. For French, who was a bit more sympathetic to those types a year ago during the Kavanaugh kerfuffle, he’s going to face a choice soon of entertaining the idea of getting back into bed with them in 2020 if Biden’s the nominee, or giving some backing to Trump, even if it’s the most tepid support possible.
I really think it is because the Left was CERTAIN that Hillary was going to win.
I mean, c’mon!!
FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT!!
DEMOCRAT!!
HER HUSBAND HAD BEEN SUCH A JERK!!
SHE DESERVED IT!!
Attacking GOP nominees is an industry. Well-funded groups have the resources to dig, media contacts, allies in blue chip DC and NY law firms and a cadre of academics in top law schools ready to pounce. The Democratic side of the Senate Judiciary Committee is now an integrity-free zone.
In 1991, Judiciary Chairman Joe Biden was sandbagged by two truly genuinely slimey individuals (Paul Simon D-IL and Howard Metzenbaum (D-OH)) who orchestrated the Anita Hill attack and then tried to introduce a far less credible accuser afterward which Biden shut down. Biden was not inclined to use the Anita Hill testimony because it was thin, old and rather insignificant (The “Long Dong Silver” and “pubic hair on coke can” embellishments came long after her exhaustive FBI interview and her statement coached/prepared by a professor at Harvard law and Senate staffers). They leaked her identity to force Biden to allow her to testify. That effectively ended the security and privacy rules (and fundamental decency) of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Democrats then created a rule that nominees are not allowed to disclose the incredibly detailed and intrusive forms and questionnaire they require of judicial nominees but they seem to be able to leak what is entered in those forms with impunity.
My favorite argument against Thomas was by a “civil rights” spokeswoman who that because liberal groups had treated him so viciously in the nomination process he would be unable to be objective about all the various matters they bring to the courts. What an idiot.
Biden made the statement after Clarence Thomas testified in opposition to the Hill testimony “I believe you, judge” which sounded almost like an apology for this nauseating circus his committee had staged (Biden voted against the nomination in the floor vote). The current Democrats on the Judiciary are incapable of even that minimum amount of decency.
You’re Catholic, and the way you talk about religion suggests you believe people who get religion wrong put their very souls at risk. Do you consider non-Catholics who are competent in other areas discredited because they’ve gotten The Most Important Thing wrong?
Or is getting Trump right even more important than getting God right?
I am at Dr Bastiat’s level of anger and Susan Quinn’s near despair. The Democrats are despicable and the Republican establishment is reprehensible. If a Democrat is elected and the Beltway crowd rejoices to return to “normal” all that will be left is to pray for SMOD.
I’m pretty sure we’ve never left “normal” for Washington, it has always been corrupt, is corrupt right now, and will always be. The only things that will change will be who is currently benefitting.
Rod Dreher earlier this week had a long essay up on Epstein and the nature of conspiracies, loyalties, and corruption, particularly in light of his own many years reporting on the Catholic church abuse scandals. It’s a long read, and well worth the time, but one passage particularly sticks out:
Dreher later emphasizes the point with a passage from CS Lewis:
To all this I will say that while we should all be enraged at the never-ending corruption in Washington, we should all have the humility to question whether we ourselves could somehow stay pure in it, and facing up to the fact that we too would be as daily-tempted as they are should both temper our wrath greatly, and dispel any notion that Trump or anyone else is really capable of fixing much of anything, especially as Trump himself has, over the course of his life and career, been very corrupt himself. At least a great number of Trump’s actions over his life have been anything except private, but of everyone else around him? The odds are good many have their skeletons kept under wraps.
They’re all compromised to some degree, I would wager, and the odds are we would be too if we somehow made it there.
But this is not a cause for despair, not if we have kept some emotional distance from it all. If all your hopes were on Trump fixing everything, or somehow restoring balance, even if he were pure as snow there’s only so much he could do in 4 or 8 years. Washington was not corrupted in so short a time, nor could it be cleaned in so short a time either. The important thing is to stay in the fight.
No, my hopes were not on Trump fixing everything. He, in fact, has done more than I hoped for. I only wanted him to arrest the slide. Sadly too many Republicans seem totally uninterested in that. Your points are well taken and reflects what the Founders knew about human nature and that are best security for individual liberty is a compact that explicitly acknowledges those rights and a government that is limited and divided so that the kind of pernicious loyalties you describe have the least impact on us all.
/whiplash!
Wait, what? I’m married to a non-Catholic, so you may have been misreading my thoughts on “getting God right.” Maybe I’ve been inarticulate, but I believe the Holy Spirit works in all kinds of people and determining their salvation is way, way above my pay grade. Like, infinitely. If anything, I’m sorry non-Catholics are missing out on the Sacraments, which I believe were instituted by Christ for the purpose of imparting grace — providing formation and fortification for the journey. I’m not interested in boxing God in or taking away anyone’s free will. His will be done. And I know how many second (third, fourth, … seven times seventy) chances I need, so I’m willing to give them to Donald Trump.
My beef with people who insist on calling balls and strikes (but Never hits) is they’ve (presumptuously, imo) set themselves up as obstacles to defeating the Left, which I see as a much bigger threat than anything about Donald Trump, including his infidelities and tweets. I don’t know the mind of God, but if He can forgive Peter and give him the keys to the Kingdom, I’m guessing He can forgive Donald Trump, and maybe He’s even using him, as flawed as he is, to bring about a great good.
My political approach is: know your enemy; stay focused. Our side’s criticisms of Trump seem unproductive or whiny, at best. And some are outright fabrications, like Charlottesville.
Thanks for the sincere reply.
After I posted my question, I realized it sounded like a “gotcha” question. But it was not intended to be.
For example, someone who saw both 2016 and 2020 as Flight 93 situations might reason something like this: Not too much of the population will die between now and Nov 2020, and if Trump is not elected in 2020 religious freedom might be in such peril in America, a nation of many souls, that, if the goal is saving souls, it really might be more important for the American populace to get Trump right between now and 2020 (thus preserving the religious freedom conducive to saving souls) than it is for it to get God right — for most of us, there’ll be time to get God right after. Reading your reply, I now know this isn’t reasoning you would use, and it’s not reasoning I would use, but it’s reasoning I could see some people finding plausible.