In a fundraising email sent to members of Moveon.org this week, Hawaii Senator Mazie Hirono invoked the name and sexual assault allegations of Christine Blasey Ford against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. This reprehensible attempt to profit from thus far unproven (and unprovable) allegations debunked by the accusers’ own named witnesses is just the latest step in a highly choreographed political drama.
Asking people to chip in money, Hirono writes, “I am angry that Trump and his cronies will do absolutely anything to take over the Court—even if it means putting an alleged sexual predator on the bench.” President Trump earned the right to nominate to the Supreme Court by winning an election. It’s Hirono and her Moveon.org cronies who are proving they will do anything to nullify the result of that election.
“Move.org needs your help to keep up the fight,” Hirono writes in her fundraising demand.
The irony of Moveon.org’s position may be lost on those not old enough to recall the Clinton impeachment hearings. Moveon.org was created to get voters to “move on” from the sexual scandals that engulfed the Clinton presidency.
By circulating a petition to “censure and move on” from the impeachment proceedings, moveon.org hoped to persuade Congress to invoke a simple censure and “move on to the pressing issues facing the country.” That’s the last thing Hirono and her friends at Moveon.org want now.
Consider where such a standard takes us. Every political appointee from this point forward can be easily discarded with a simple sexual assault allegation. Truth is optional.
Perversely, Hirono and friends have discovered that the usefulness of sexual assault allegations does not depend on the truthfulness of those allegations. As so many on the left are telling us on Twitter, this is just a job interview for Kavanaugh, not a court proceeding; therefore, they reason, no due process is required. The mere existence of an allegation, they tell us, should be sufficient to permanently scuttle Kavanaugh’s nomination.
Consider where such a standard takes us. Every political appointee from this point forward can be easily discarded with a simple sexual assault allegation. Truth is optional. Is that the country we want to live in?
In the short term, Democrats see a lot of utility in this standard. Sexual assault allegations can be used to gin up support among the base, to fundraise, to delay a Supreme Court appointment, and ideally to impact upcoming elections. All of that can be gained whether the allegations are true or not.
But all of this creates perverse incentives for political operatives (on both sides) to manufacture allegations anytime they disagree with an appointee’s politics – or with the broader results of an election. Furthermore, this standard would have even more damaging implications when more broadly applied outside of politics.
While allegations of sexual assault are serious, they are no less serious than false allegations manufactured for political gain. So far, the evidence in the Blasey Ford allegations is all on the side of Kavanaugh. Until that changes, I view the histrionics from Senate Democrats with extreme skepticism.
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