Updated

The intellectual and moral compass of the political left in America was twisting in the wind hours and days before President Donald J. Trump introduced Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the Washington, D.C. federal circuit court as his nominee to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court. They lost true North within moments of the announcement.

“Brett Kavanaugh is a dangerous criminal.” This statement, from Hillary Shelton, a high-ranking official at the NAACP, was made about a devoted Christian father of two young girls, who lives his faith through his dedication to public service by serving meals to the homeless in Washington, tutors underprivileged children at local elementary schools, and coaches youth basketball. Apparently, my dictionary definition of criminal dramatically differs from that of Ms. Shelton and her colleagues, but I don’t believe that Judge Brett Kavanaugh fits the description.

The radical left and the mainstream media began their work early to stop Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation. Hours before President Trump’s announcement, ABC Nightline promoted that night’s show with the headline “Tonight on Nightline, Terry Moran reports on the controversial Supreme Court Justice pick.”  Well-organized and well-paid protestors lined the steps of the Supreme Court with pre-printed signs with fill-in-the-blank name in anticipation of the announcement.

The leftist Women’s March sent a press release during Kavanaugh’s remarks complete with a XX mark where the name of the nominee was supposed to go. Fox News host Shannon Bream was forced to postpone her show on the steps of the Supreme Court as she feared for her safety and that of show staff because of the vile remarks and physically threatening approaches by protesters. Sitting U.S. Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Cory Booker, D-N.J., Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who are charged with questioning and consenting on the Kavanaugh nomination, tacitly supported the mob on the court steps with their very presence and heated rhetoric. "This is a nominee who wants to pave the path to tyranny,” proclaimed Merkley.

Because the stakes are so high for the left’s activism through the courts, the fight for Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation will not be easy.

Groups such as the ACLU, Center For American Progress, and many others have already galvanized Democratic senators to attempt to “Bork” the Kavanaugh nomination, just as they did to President Reagan and Judge Robert Bork in 1987.

The professional left is well-funded and are powerful influencers in Congress. Both the public comments preceding the Kavanaugh announcement and the comments from both liberal interest groups and sitting senators since, display a literal and metaphorical frothing at the mouth to systematically defame and vilify an outstanding human and respected jurist.

These attacks are not only unfair, but utterly baseless and even dangerous. Kavanaugh is a worthy successor to Justice Kennedy, and his nomination and confirmation is the only way for Americans who respect the Constitution to ensure the integrity of this Supreme Court, the Constitution, and the rule of law for the next 20 years. Judge Kavanaugh's temperament, jurisprudence and deference to the legislative process – plus his history as a principled constitutionalist jurist – indicate that as a member of the highest court in the land, he will interpret the law, not make law.

By contrast, the American left has, over the past decades, effectively packed the Supreme Court and the federal and state judiciary with activist judges to match their leftist ideology. Fortunately, President Trump and Senate Republicans have stemmed this tide by confirming the most federal court justices in the first year and a half of any presidency.

The unprecedented assault by liberal federal judges on the rule of law and the founding principles of our Republic is a basic tenet of liberal ideology and they will spare no expense and there are no lows to which they will not sink, including assassinating the outstanding character and credentials of Judge Brett Kavanaugh, in order to take the federal courts down this path.

Because the stakes are so high for the left’s activism through the courts, the fight for Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation will not be easy, and it is up to all Americans and members of the Senate to reject the vile personal attacks that continue to pour in from the unhinged opponents of his nomination.

Judge Kavanaugh would be the most qualified jurist in America to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. He will apply the law as written and respect the Constitution. There is nothing more threatening and criminal to the political left in America.