Bob Meade - The good, the bad, and the ugly . . .

For some time, we have been subjected to politicians working to divide our country; pitting race against race, gender against gender, party against party, and young against old. All these divisions have come to a head as the left does everything possible to prevent the confirmation of a constitutionalist judge. Some examples:

— Shortly after Judge Kavanaugh’s name was submitted to the Senate for confirmation, ranking member Feinstein received a letter from Dr. Ford alleging that, as a high school student about 36 years ago, she was sexually molested by Brett Kavanaugh at a party — groped, not sexually penetrated. She could not remember the date of the party, the location, the host or hostess, who invited her, how she got there, or how she got home after the alleged incident. She could only describe the incident and she named about four party attendees. (None of whom confirmed her allegations.)

— Senator Feinstein did not inform anyone about the letter nor did she share information about the incident with the committee chairman, Republican Charles Grassley. She kept mum about it for about six weeks, until the end of the confirmation hearing.

— During the confirmation hearing, Judge Kavanaugh did an excellent job in fielding all of the senators’ questions. He exhibited an outstanding ability to cite details about each case in question and was able to recall the previous judicial rulings that influenced his decisions. In addition, he showed that he was an exceptional student, very involved in his community, a man of faith, had served in a key staff position under President George W. Bush, had served 12 years on what is often called the second highest court in the country, was currently active as a professor at the Harvard Law School, was an active volunteer in his community in serving the needy and in coaching his daughter’s basketball teams. He came across as a loving family man with an exemplary record.

— At the end of the hearing, Senator Feinstein brought forth the allegations made by Dr. Ford . . . and political, tactical chaos ensued. Chairman Grassley was told that Dr. Ford wanted privacy, did not want to go public, that she was afraid to fly, and she had a number of other requests to be accommodated. The chairman offered to have the team fly out to California so she wouldn’t have to fly and so her privacy request could be honored. She subsequently agreed to come to Washington for the hearing but asked that the hearing be delayed so she could drive across country and not have to fly. She also requested that she be permitted to be questioned only after Judge Kavanaugh had been interviewed and that he not be allowed to be present during her interview.

— Chairman Grassley was then confronted with statements by Democrat senators, blatantly suggesting that it would be unfair to Dr. Ford to be questioned by the Republican committee members as they were all “old white men.”

— To avoid the “old white men” bias shown by the Democrat senator from Hawaii, Chairman Grassley arranged to have a woman prosecutor from Arizona, who has an extensive background in dealing with sexual misconduct cases, do the questioning of Dr. Ford. The questions were not confrontational, they were asked in a gentle manner and were about as simple and basic as they could be. Even so, Dr. Ford’s response to questions about Senator Grassley’s offer to send the team out to California to accommodate her desire for privacy and to avoid the necessity for her to board an airplane, showed genuine surprise on the face of Dr. Ford. Apparently, she had not been advised by her lawyers/advisors or any Democrat senators about those offers; she was being manipulated by her managers who were seeking to delay the confirmation process for political purposes.

— When Judge Kavanaugh was being questioned by the Democrat senators, he was brutalized . . . called “evil” by a senator who had himself been a sexual predator and who had also blatantly lied in his self-promoting “Spartacus” moment. Judge Kavanaugh was chastised by a senator who had attempted to steal the valor of those who served in combat in Vietnam, previously claiming that he had served in Vietnam when, in fact, he was in the reserves and had never left his home state of Connecticut. And, most citizens saw the senator from Hawaii tell all men to, “Shut up! And step up.”

— Because of his sterling record as a judge, Democrat senators could not find fault with his resume so they chose to nit-pick his high school yearbook for definitions of words, trying to paint him as some sort of pervert because he and his friends used colorful language to describe things like flatulence.

— When Judge Kavanaugh had his chance to respond to the allegations and the brutal attacks by Democrat senators, he did so with the emotion of a man who lived through the anguish Democrat senators caused to his family, including the humiliation inflicted on his young daughters. The result of his impassioned (and justified) defense, is those same (now “delicate”) Democrat Ssenators cry out that the judge does not have the proper temperament to sit on the Supreme Court.

In their attempt to destroy Judge Kavanaugh, the Democrat senators are on the way to destroying our republic.

(Bob Meade is a Laconia resident. He may be reached at bobmeade13@gmail.com)