Ingraham: The lessons of the Kavanaugh battle
If the GOP gives into the rabid mob mentality in this current fight, they will just embolden the worst instincts of the left.
President Trump gave Republicans a master class in retaliating against the tactics of the left on Tuesday, and GOP senators would do well to take notes.
Undoubtedly weary of watching the daily smear storm buffeting his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, Mr. Trump decided it was time to do what he does best -- fight back. And he did not mince words.
“The Democrats are playing a con game, C-O-N. A con game,” he said. "They know it's a con game. They know he's high quality. And they wink at each other. They are winking. They know it's a con game."
President Trump is never going to be content to hang back and play defense when he sees his agenda in jeopardy. He tried that a little bit for a few days last week when Christine Ford's allegation Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in the early 1980s when they were in high school was dropped, and he won praise for being measured and presidential.
These uncivil tactics and slimy smears against good people are exposing just how radicalized, how contemptible some strains of today's Democratic Party has become.
That's nice, but meanwhile, his nominee was under a massive left-wing assault as Republicans on the committee were bending over backwards to accommodate the accuser's demands for delays and various conditions. Well, Trump is back and not a moment too soon.
On Tuesday, he also had this to say, “It is a shame that you can do this to a person's life. I will tell you, maybe even more important, who is going to want to go before this system to be a Supreme Court judge or to be a judge or to be even a politician?”
It's a great point. Notice how he boils it all down to a stark set of facts that can be understood by all Americans. And he's unafraid, despite the mealy-mouthed protestations of those around him, to throw counter punches.
When a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh's came forward with a thoroughly unsubstantiated claim that he exposed himself to her at a drunken dormitory party, Trump took the claim apart.
“Thirty-six years ago? Nobody ever knew about it, nobody ever heard about it? And now a new charge comes up, and she says, "Well, it might not be him. She thinks, maybe it could have been him, maybe not. She admits that she was drunk. She admits time lapses. There were time lapses.”
By the way, it's the same approach President Trump is taking on the world stage. At the United Nations yesterday, as the global elites shifted in their chairs uncomfortably, he delivered a fiercely pro-American, pro-sovereignty message.
“We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable global bureaucracy," he said. "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”
Defiant. Unapologetic. Clear. We need more of that today.
Getting back to Kavanaugh, Trump's approach offers a stark contrast to that of the Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They walked right into the trap set by the left-wing smear squad.
Republican senators Jeff Flake, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski all felt pressured to give in to the #MeToo militants, forcing Senate Judiciary committee chairman Chuck Grassley to postpone last Thursday's Kavanaugh vote. Democrats, true to form, were given an inch and took a mile. They took the confirmation process hostage.
No accommodation for Ford is enough. She must be believed, and Kavanaugh must be blamed. Never mind the frightening lack of corroboration, evidence or even basic facts to go on. The Democrats have spawned a mob-like circus in the hallways of the senate offices, and now anti-Kavanaugh nasties are targeting and trying to humiliate Republican senators when they are out in public.
Most Americans bristle at this stuff. These uncivil tactics and slimy smears against good people are exposing just how radicalized, how contemptible some strains of today's Democratic Party has become.
But maybe, just maybe, there is something positive that has emerged in all of this.
Republicans are beginning to see what they are capable of actually accomplishing when they work together. Without the interparty fights, the warfare interparty, they can actually do a good deal of good. I am told that President George W. Bush is making calls on Kavanaugh's behalf. And it was very encouraging to see Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stand firm and make a statement like this:
“Justice matters. Evidence matters. Facts matter. Vague, unsubstantiated, and uncorroborated allegations of 30 plus-year-old misconduct where all the supposed witnesses either totally deny it or can't confirm it is nowhere near grounds to nullify someone's career or destroy their good name.”
Amen. And it's about time all Republicans called this out, what they have done to Brett Kavanaugh for what it is. It's a total disgrace.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley's decision to schedule the Kavanaugh committee vote Friday morning is another positive development. It shows the GOP might actually be following the commander-in-chief's lead.
If Republicans continue to fight for fairness and justice in the way that Trump has on issue after issue, we may not only see a Justice Kavanaugh, we may just hold the majority come November.
Adapted from Laura Ingraham's opening monologue on "The Ingraham Angle, Sept. 26. 2018
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