Predictions and Observations on How the Coming Week Will Play Out for the Kavanaugh Confirmation - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Predictions and Observations on How the Coming Week Will Play Out for the Kavanaugh Confirmation
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I begin by sharing forthrightly my abject disgust over everything I have seen play out since the President nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy to the High Court.

I am disgusted by the Democrats and The Resistance. I am not disgusted that their political views differ from my deeply conservative views. That is politics, and that is fair. We do not live in the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela, or in any of the 23-plus Arab Muslim countries — worlds where there is no honest democracy. We live in the United States. In this country, it is to be expected that people will differ. Even a 55%-45% electoral victory in America is deemed a veritable landslide. When the divide is 60% to 40%, it is anepiclandslide. That means that, for every majority viewpoint, at least two-fifths of the people will see things differently. So I am not disgusted that Democrats disagree with my conservative world view.

Rather, I am disgusted by their falsehoods, their deceit, their mendacity, their hypocrisy, their sanctimonious lying. They never asked for an FBI investigation of Lois Lerner. Or of Eric Holder’s “Fast and Furious.” They never believed Juanita Broaddrick, whom Bill Clinton raped. They never believed Paula Jones who was brought by Arkansas state troopers to Clinton’s hotel room, where Clinton dropped his trousers and exposed his member. They never believed Kathleen Willey, whose husband suddenly was dead and who desperately needed a job, went to Clinton to seek employment, and soon found herself being pawed and groped.

Ironically, Broaddrick was in the ambit of Clinton raping her because she was a Clinton volunteer. Willey was a friend of Clinton. These were not embedded Republican operatives. Unlike Christine Blasey Ford, they never had signed letters attacking the politics of the other side, never had donated money to the other side. But they were groped or forced to encounter exposure or were raped. Monica Lewinsky, too, initially was portrayed as a looney. What saved Lewinsky is that, unlike Dr. Ford, Monica ultimately had evidence: the Clinton DNA-rich semen stain on her dress. Thus, although Clinton initially vehemently denied her accusations — “I did not have sex with that woman” — he soon backtracked when learning that not only was his reputation stained.

But the Democrats did not give a care. Kirsten Gillibrand was with Clinton — #SheToo. Just as the Democrats do not give a care to Karen Monahan’s impassioned cries that Keith Ellison, a major national Democrat leader and a documented vile anti-Semite, beat her up, mauled her, and dragged her on the floor by her hair. What abouthertruth? What about her #MeToo?

I also am disgusted by the way thatsomeRepublicans have messed things. Let us note: thevast majorityof Senate Republicans are doing their job and are rock-solid on the Kavanaugh nomination. He has 48 of the 51 Republican Senators. That reality is not getting the attention it deserves from Republican conservatives. This is not Grassley’s fault; he has done his job. Rather, this is about:

  • Jeff Flake from Arizona who is taking his last bow before hiring himself out as a cable news commentator. Thankfully, President Trump long ago elicited from Flake outbursts on the Senate floor that demonstrated that he is not the conservative Arizona Republican whom his voters initially thought that were electing, and that is why he is out in a month.
  • Susan Collins, who simply cannot disregard that she gets elected in Maine, not Alabama or Mississippi, and knows that Republicans are better off with her covering her bases now than by her posturing as an uncompromising conservative and losing races in Maine.
  • Lisa Murkowski, a RINO who does not have the legitimate excuse that Collins has, because Alaska is rock-ribbed conservative, but Murkowski is impossible.
  • Richard Mourdock, the Republican fool who blew the Senate race in Indiana six years ago, when Democrat Joe Donnelly was easy pickins, because he just had to opine on rape and abortion.
  • Todd Akin, the Republican fool who blew the Senate race in Missouri six years ago, when Democrat Claire McCaskill was easy pickins, because he also just had to opine on rape and abortion.
  • The debacle last year in Alabama that saw Jeff Sessions’s safe Republican U.S. Senate seat lost, partly because of the Peter Principle disaster occasioned by elevating Sessions to Attorney-General beyond his level of excellence, and partly because the Republicans lost the seat to Doug Jones by running a candidate who got slimed by the Seedier Media and whose personal background left him exposed to such calumny.

Thus, Grassley is dealing well with a tough deck of cards. He has a committee of 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats, and he rightly has been headstrong on getting Judge Kavanaugh approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. To do so, he had ten Republicans in favor, ten Resisters resisting, and Flake. So he cut a deal with Flake. He had no choice. So be it; that is how things get done in democracies. In return for agreeing to the pointless extra week’s FBI investigation — the seventh time they are investigating Judge Kavanaugh — Grassley got Flake’s vote. Remember: The Republicans could not get a committee majority to send Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the floor for a vote, but Grassley engineered Kavanaugh’s committee approval.

Now it goes to the Senate floor. Mitch McConnell has been training for this moment all his life. We saw how he masterfully managed the Merrick Garland nonsense. He knows how to move the Kavanaugh nomination forward on the Senate floor. He just needs two votes out of the three waffled Republicans: Flake, Collins, and Murkowski. Here is my prediction of how the coming week will play out:

1. The FBI will interview the people who supposedly were at the alleged party. They may subject some or all of them to a lie detector test. Mark Judge, a recovering alcoholic and seriously ill, will again deny being at any such party. Same with PJ Smith. Same with Leland Keyser, Ford’s female friend on whose veracity Ford now casts aspersions by saying she is severely ill. Keyser has said so many times that she does not know Judge Kavanaugh and has no recollection of being at any party where he was present. All these people will be speaking to the FBI under the same risk as did Michael Flynn and others who have been prosecuted for lying to the FBI. All will have attorneys protecting them. None will lie. It is hard to imagine any of them changing their repeated stories from the ones to which they already have attested under penalty of felony. The investigation will corroborate where all the players stand: that no one knows what Ford is talking about in terms of Judge Kavanaugh. The FBI even may ask Ford how she got to the party without a car, how she got home, what she was doing there, who invited her, whether she went alone, what her swim suit looked like, how she ended up at such a party. Maybe they again will ask the date, the home address. Perhaps they will ask to see Ford’s medical records, her therapist’s records, all documentation regarding the polygraph test she took at the time her grandmother died. Whether she was on meds as a teen. Whether she ever has undergone hypnosis. Perhaps.

2. The FBI will talk to Deborah Ramirez and presumably to the client of Avenatti, the porn lawyer. They will take their statements, will find no one credible to corroborate them, will find that very-many others actually deny them outright, and will find no evidence to support anything that Ramirez or the porn lawyer’s client will say. The FBI will not delve deeper into the mental state of Ramirez or the porn lawyer’s client, so will not opine on how crazy or emotionally unstable either may be. They simply will take the statements and report them.

3. When a week or so has passed, the FBI will report back, and the Democrats will demand a longer investigation. They will demand that more leads be followed, that the investigation was too short, too limited in focus. They will demand that Sen. Grassley reopen the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings. Perhaps two or three new social misfits will emerge in the media to cry that they, too, were raped by Kavanaugh or by Ruth Bader Ginsburg or by Paul Manafort or by whomever the Democrats tell them they were raped by. Dianne Feinstein will demand a new hearing, perhaps even finding new letters in her files, maybe even a claim by the spy for China who served as her personal chauffeur for twenty years that Kavanaugh raped him.

4. Unless the FBI uncovers something so remarkable that even conservatives would acknowledge is irrefutable — and no fair-minded conservative would deny truth and corroborated facts, as liberals do — there is absolutely no way on earth that Grassley will reopen the hearings. Yes, all conservative Republicans are disgusted, believing this is the song that never ends, but this absolutely will end. Grassley absolutely will not reopen the hearings. He agreed to the extra week to give Collins political cover with her voters and as a trade-off for Flake’s vote to approve the nomination and send it to the floor.

5. It will go the Senate floor. The Democrats will lose focus onRoe v. Wade, and they will devote a day or two of long-winded speeches on two subjects: that America must respect “her truth” and that the FBI investigation was a sham, too short, too inconclusive, raised new questions, and all else.

6. McConnell then will force the thing to a vote. For this we owe everything to Harry Reid, who ended the filibuster tradition for voting on federal judges. Thank you, Harry. Thank you again, Harry. You lied bald-faced on the Senate floor about Mitt Romney and his taxes, knowing you could not be sued for defamation under the “Legislative Privilege” exception to defamation law. But you did not live completely in vain. Thank you, thank you, Harry.

7. Kavanaugh will be confirmed as long as Collins believes she has cover, and the FBI supplemental investigation almost surely should be ample. Flake, regardless of his cable-news ambitions, made a deal with Grassley, and he almost-surely will stand by the deal because it was a personal backroom face-to face, man-to-man promise. Although no conservative can trust Flake on public-policy issues, he made a private deal with Grassley, man-to-man, and these guys never go back on a private one-to-one deal. Flake got what he asked for, and he will honor his personal backroom deal with Grassley.

8. Murkowski will see that there is no point in opposing Kavanaugh since Collins and Flake will have fallen into line.

9. Clarence Thomas never got the committee majority but still got through the Senate floor 52-48. If the three recalcitrant Republicans fall into line, Joe Manchin of West Virginia almost-certainly will vote for Kavanaugh, too — not that it will matter. For the same cynical reason, so might Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Jon Tester of Montana. If they do not, Kavanaugh will be approved anyway, and middle-road Republicans and Independents in their states will see what the rest of us figured out years ago — they are part of The Resistance. On the other hand, if they cynically cave and vote for Kavanaugh once his confirmation is certain anyway, they will infuriate their left wings on the eve of the November 6 election. Good.

Other observations:

1. This entire Kavanaugh episode will mark a turning point in the totalitarian aspects of the #MeToo movement. It will not end the movement — nor should we ever stop believing and respecting the valid testimony of women subjected to physical intimidation or worse — but it will end the totalitarianism. It will launch an American consensus that, when a woman speaks her truth with no evidence or corroboration, and a man speaks corroborated and evidenced truth, then #MenToo will trump #MeToo.

2. This entire Kavanaugh episode will mark the first time in half a century that Republicans will not have capitulated, in the final equation, to Democrat slander, libel, and character assassination. Nixon nominated G. Harrold Carswell, and the President and Republicans caved. Nixon nominated Clement Haynesworth, and the President and Republicans caved. Reagan nominated Bork, and the Republicans caved. Bush I nominated Thomas, and Republicans bent. But this one is different. In the end, all (or all but one) Republicans will stand with their nominee at the final floor vote — and this President is made of steel and will not cave. This will be a turning point.

3. Democrats and their Seedier Media stooges, through extraordinary overreach, will have wasted the critical weeks leading up to November 6, putting all their eggs in the Kavanaugh basket. Instead of the daily fake news and media lies centered around Stormy Daniels, Omarosa, Michael Cohen, the President’s mental health, the First Lady’s clothing, statues commemorating Civil War heroes, the Wall, ICE and policy at the southern border, and all the other rumors, slanders, garbage, and lies that fuel the 24/7 CNN-MSNBC cycle, augmented by theNew York Times/WashingtonPostaxis, they will have refocused everyone on one issue that the Republicans will win and that a supplemental FBI investigation will not gainsay: Brett Kavanaugh.

4. In the African-American and Latino communities, President Trump has been registering record gains. It well may be an interesting question to learn how the Kavanaugh issue has impacted the perceptions of African-American and Latinomalevoters. It cannot hurt.

5. The muck stops here. For half a century, the Democrats have fought filthy almost every time a Republican President has nominated a truly conservative judge for the United States Supreme Court. They have been emboldened by a record that, with the narrow exception of Clarence Thomas, has seen them always win as soon as they get in the mud. Republicans are too neat and dignified to get into mud: the kinder gentler Bushes, the genteel Reagan. All the nice, clean, dignified, well-mannered Mitt Romneys and Bob Doles who just never would drive a woman over a bridge while intoxicated and then let her drown in a Chappaquiddick while they evaluated the political pros and cons of calling life-rescue units. But President Trump has set a new example for Republicans to consider: The Muck Stops Here.

6. It is very possible that President Trump will have at least one more Supreme Court seat to fill, maybe two. Indeed, there could be value in exploring whether there are grounds to impeach Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, based on increasingly volatile political comments she has made in recent years, belying a surprising erosion of the judicial temperament she manifested decades ago. Surely, it is time for Republicans in public policy forums to start exploring ways to demand that she recuse herself from hearing cases that involve the man she openly despises, President Trump. And depending on what happens the next time the President selects a Supreme Court justice, a new template will have been set by which Republicans will advise and consent when the tables turn, as they always eventually do.

7. In past years, there were so many RINOs in the U.S. Senate on the Republican side of the aisle that no good conservative defense and counter-attack ever could be launched. It is telling that the Tea Party movement and the Trump Revolution now have so reoriented the Republican aisle in the Senate that only two true RINOs are left: Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Flake. (As Susan Collins’s voting record on all critical issues demonstrates, she is not a RINO but a Republican who needs to accommodate a Maine electorate.) Flake is out in a few weeks. Murkowski is the only RINO left right now. The conservative movement’s rank and file have come a long way in changing the party.

Dov Fischer
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Rabbi Dov Fischer, Esq., is Vice President of the Coalition for Jewish Values (comprising over 2,000 Orthodox rabbis), was adjunct professor of law at two prominent Southern California law schools for nearly 20 years, and is Rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California. He was Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and clerked for the Hon. Danny J. Boggs in the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit before practicing complex civil litigation for a decade at three of America’s most prominent law firms: Jones Day, Akin Gump, and Baker & Hostetler. He likewise has held leadership roles in several national Jewish organizations, including Zionist Organization of America, Rabbinical Council of America, and regional boards of the American Jewish Committee and B’nai B’rith Hillel Foundation. His writings have appeared in Newsweek, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Federalist, National Review, the Jerusalem Post, and Israel Hayom. A winner of an American Jurisprudence Award in Professional Legal Ethics, Rabbi Fischer also is the author of two books, including General Sharon’s War Against Time Magazine, which covered the Israeli General’s 1980s landmark libel suit. Other writings are collected at www.rabbidov.com.
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