It’s imperative now that Brett Kavanaugh be confirmed, and not only because of the stakes for the Supreme Court.
Yes, we’re going to find ourselves in quite a pickle if President Trump has to choose another nominee so close to the mid-term elections, and we’re looking at the possibility of a Democrat Senate next year that won’t confirm anyone he nominates – unless it’s someone chosen from a pre-approved list Charles Schumer helpfully provides.
You can be sure there will be no crossover between that list and the one from the Federalist Society.
But there’s a more important reason than that. If the last-minute attacks on Kavanaugh are rewarded with the scuttling of his nomination, there will be no restraint left on anyone to lodge any smear – no matter how ancient, scurrilous or unsubstantiated it may be – against anyone, ever again.
Let’s consider the nature of this accusation:
A woman who is known to be a Democratic Party partisan claims that more than 35 years ago, when all the principal players were high school students, Brett Kavanaugh tried to force himself on her sexually during a party they both attended. There is no evidence. There are no corroborating witnesses. There is other history of behavior on Brett Kavanaugh’s part that would suggest anything of this kind in his character – and remember, he’s already been subject to FBI background checks multiple times.
We have an accuser who at first wanted to remain anonymous and now is willing to go on record only after her story got so much attention that it seems impossible for her not to. This we have to put up against the testimony of 65 women who knew Kavanaugh at the time and state categorically that they never saw him treat women with anything but respect.
There is no way to prove this incident ever took place. There is much reason to doubt it and little reason to believe it. Brett Kavanaugh not only denies this ever happened, but says he wasn’t even at the party in question. The Kavanaugh friend who was supposedly present at the time of the incident says it never happened.
Now, is it absolutely impossible that it happened? No. There’s no way to prove it didn’t. But given how thin the evidence is, how ancient the story is, and how completely contrary the story is to everything visible about Kavanaugh’s character, it would be an absolute travesty to deny Kavanaugh confirmation on the basis of this allegation alone.
But the travesty would not end there. If this allegation takes Kavanaugh down, it will be open season in Washington on absolutely everyone. Any allegation of any kind will be used to destroy people and deny them appointments. It will spread to elections too. Every candidate should be ready for it. It’s coming.
No allegation will be too old. Too poorly supported. Too implausible. As long as one person says it happened, that will be good enough. The accused will be done.
Because that is all we have here.
The boss knows all about Washington’s capacity for drumming up garbage allegations when someone is getting a little too successful and making the Beltway nervous. But we’ve never seen someone taken down on the basis of something this flimsy.
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Confirming Brett Kavanaugh, as quickly as possible, will show that this kind of dirty trick is not going to work. Doing anything other than that will invite lots of more it, and that’s what we’ll get.
By the way, Donald Trump did not introduce this kind of nastiness to Washington. Donald Trump is president because Washington was already this nasty and voters decided we might as well have a president willing to give as good as these people do.
Stop this now, or it will never stop.
