Susan Collins Steps Up

Our greatest self-defined defenders of democracy are out in force denouncing the upcoming Senate vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. As happened with the election of Hillary Clinton, they refuse to accept any vote that does not affirm their position. Since they hold, as an article of faith, that legislation creates reality, they are more than normally outraged to see reality shift under their feet.

Now, when they are not out trying to shout down United States Senators, thus showing their respect for free and open discourse, they are laying the predicate for a further assault on Judge Kavanaugh. If Democrats regain control over the House of Representatives, Congressman Jerrold Nadler promises a Kavanaugh investigation and even an eventual impeachment. Many chronic whiners in the mainstream media are claiming that the Supreme Court will henceforth lack legitimacy-- they should have added that the rule only pertains to decisions that they do not like.

Of course, delegitimizing the Supreme Court was their intention all along. The taint they threw at Judge Kavanaugh was designed to defy democratic norms and to impose their will on the United States Senate. By slandering Kavanaugh they could win for losing… because they must never really have believed that they were going to win. They wanted to intimidate, to threaten, to shout down, to suppress views that did not echo theirs.

Like the Brown Shirts of the Third Reich or the Red Guards of Mao’s China… these so-called protesters wanted to disrupt and discredit America’s institutions.

Here is a prediction: the brouhaha over Brett Kavanaugh will die down. It is a politically losing issue. It will die down when we read the first Kavanaugh decision. The baying mob will move on and will find another victim, another way to deconstruct American civilization.

Anyway, the hero of the hour is Maine Senator Susan Collins. To the preternatural horror of our thought police, Collins did not just tell us how she would vote, she spend a large chunk of time delivering a superb speech explaining how she had come to her conclusion. In a time of mayhem, in a time when screeching has become the order of the day, rational thought comes as a welcome relief.

Collins rose to the occasion. She may or may not have saved the Senate, but she rendered the Republic a wonderful service.

Here, for your edification, a few of her remarks. Note that she began by considering Kavanaugh’s judicial record. Is it not strange that so few of those who attacked him, even of those who defended him, managed to conduct a full evaluation of his record as a judge? You would think that that would be the primary object of their interest. In truth, their primary interest was in grandstanding and creating political drama. Most of the senators who indulged their tendency for hyperbolic do not, I suspect, know enough about the law to debate a Brett Kavanaugh.

Collins was appalled by the frenzy:

…. we have seen special interest groups whip their followers into a frenzy by spreading misrepresentations and outright falsehoods about Judge Kavanaugh’s judicial record. Over-the-top rhetoric and distortions of his record and testimony at his first hearing produced short-lived headlines which, although debunked hours later, continue to live on and be spread through social media. Interest groups have also spent an unprecedented amount of dark money opposing this nomination.

As for Judge Kavanaugh’s track record, Collins said this:

Judge Kavanaugh has received rave reviews for his 12-year track record as a judge, including for his judicial temperament. The American Bar Association (ABA) gave him its highest possible rating. Its Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary conducted an extraordinarily thorough assessment, soliciting input from almost 500 people, including his judicial colleagues. The ABA concluded that “his integrity, judicial temperament, and professional competence met the highest standard.”

And, in the matter of the Christine Blasey Ford allegations, Collins insisted on the importance of due process of law, the presumption of innocence and basic fairness.

In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be. We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.

The presumption of innocence is relevant to the advice and consent function when an accusation departs from a nominee’s otherwise exemplary record. I worry that departing from this presumption could lead to a lack of public faith in the judiciary and would be hugely damaging to the confirmation process moving forward.

And also:

This is not a criminal trial, and I do not believe that claims such as these need to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. Nevertheless, fairness would dictate that the claims at least should meet a threshold of “more likely than not” as our standard.

The facts presented do not mean that Professor Ford was not sexually assaulted that night – or at some other time – but they do lead me to conclude that the allegations fail to meet the “more likely than not” standard. Therefore, I do not believe that these charges can fairly prevent Judge Kavanaugh from serving on the Court.

Collins concluded by stating that we are not seeing a difference of opinion. We are seeing attacks on human beings, attempts to destroy human beings, for the crime of having different opinions:

We live in a time of such great disunity, as the bitter fight over this nomination both in the Senate and among the public clearly demonstrates. It is not merely a case of different groups having different opinions. It is a case of people bearing extreme ill will toward those who disagree with them. In our intense focus on our differences, we have forgotten the common values that bind us together as Americans. When some of our best minds are seeking to develop ever more sophisticated algorithms designed to link us to websites that only reinforce and cater to our views, we can only expect our differences to intensify.

Yesterday was her day. A job exceptionally well done.