Democrats will regret their latest Brett Kavanaugh smear - Washington Examiner

When the New York Times published a book excerpt this weekend from The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation, the Left went bonkers reenacting the confirmation battle of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The article, though focused on Deborah Ramirez’s uncorroborated claim that while undergraduates at Yale, Kavanaugh had exposed himself to her, added a new charge: “A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hands of a female student.”

The story prompted at least five Democratic presidential candidates to demand Kavanaugh's impeachment, including Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren.

Last year the Kavanaugh nomination was rammed through the Senate without a thorough examination of the allegations against him. Confirmation is not exoneration, and these newest revelations are disturbing. Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) September 15, 2019

I sat through those hearings. Brett Kavanaugh lied to the U.S. Senate and most importantly to the American people. He was put on the Court through a sham process and his place on the Court is an insult to the pursuit of truth and justice.
He must be impeached.
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 15, 2019

Since the story broke, the media and left-leaning politicians have been caught up in a self-congratulatory smirk-fest over the relitigation of the the Kavanaugh controversy. But, for several reasons, the Left will likely rue the day the New York Times published the hit piece on Kavanaugh.

First, the article omitted several facts relevant to the new charge against Kavanaugh. While the reporters identified then-Yale student Max Stier as the witness to Kavanaugh’s supposed misconduct, they failed to mention that Stier had previously butted heads with Kavanaugh when he served on Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s team, with Stier representing Bill Clinton during the impeachment proceedings.

Even more damning to Stier’s claim are the additional details included in the book but (initially) excluded from the Times article. "The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident," reads an Editor's Note from the Times, added after conservative media exposed the omission.

By omitting these facts initially and then being forced to correct the record, the Times has lost much of its credibility, especially on the Kavanaugh controversy. The Times just reminded the country how shaky its reporting is as the country prepares for the 2020 election.

The hit piece on Kavanaugh has also served to remind Republicans of what the Left put the man and his family through during the confirmation hearings. That righteous indignation propelled conservatives to the polls in the 2018 midterm elections, helping Republicans to make gains in the Senate.

The Senate results established that voting against Kavanaugh was a losing proposition, as many red-state Democratic senators who voted against Kavanaugh’s confirmation lost reelection. The losers included Sens. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Claire McCaskill of Missouri. Riling up the Republican base when we are just a year out from the 2020 presidential election does not seem like the brightest strategy.

Not only are the Left’s renewed attacks on Kavanaugh angering the Right and likely boosting turnout next November, they are quieting internal conservative squabbling. The schism on the Republican side between the MAGA and Never Trump folks seemed near-absolute, except when it came to Kavanaugh. A united Republican Party cannot be defeated.

The continuous flogging of Kavanaugh also risks forcing the hand of Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Lindsey Graham. Since he replaced Sen. Chuck Grassley as chair, he has done nothing in response to the bogus claims presented to the committee against Kavanaugh. The New York Times hit piece might just be the impetus Graham needs to act.

Finally, the renewed attacks on Kavanaugh are likely to gird him for the legal battles to come. Had liberals left things as they were, there was a chance Kavanaugh might try to redeem himself in the eyes of liberals. Kavanaugh’s showcasing of his hiring of an all-female staff of law clerks reeked of virtue signaling and suggested he might feel the need to prove himself. How better to prove to liberals you aren’t a misogynist than to uphold Roe v. Wade? However, Kavanaugh likely now realizes he will always be the bad guy in their eyes, so he might as well stick to his principles rather than pander to the Left for an unattainable acceptance.

The longer the press pushes the Kavanaugh story, the more damage done to the Democratic Party — but also the more damage done to the justice’s wife and young daughters. So, for the sake of the Kavanaugh family, here’s to hoping the media realizes its political miscalculation imminently.

Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. She served nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk to a federal appellate judge and is a former full-time faculty member and current adjunct professor for the college of business at the University of Notre Dame.

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