By Rick Manning
The Senate must not to cave into mob rule and instead must support confirming Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
If the Senate votes against Judge Kavanaugh it will be assenting to mob rule to take down President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, not because of veracity of the allegations made against him or whether they could ever be proven beyond a reasonable doubt but because of the politics of the moment.
In the past, judges and justices were examined by the Senate on the basis of qualifications. Unfortunately the current process has become purely political, with a ratcheting up of the politics of personal destruction to defeat nominees as seen in the cases of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.
Because of these unsubstantiated allegations, Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation has become one of the most divisive in our nation’s history as a fervent mob is demanding that we destroy Kavanaugh and his entire life without any proof, beyond a single person’s statement, to say he committed the actions he is accused of.
It is alarming that Senate Democrats have not already rejected the mob rule that is at the heart of the Kavanaugh opposition, and a vote against Kavanaugh would be a complete capitulation to the demand that a baseless charge with zero corroboration be considered disqualifying when weighed against a lifetime of honorable and excellent achievement.
Mob rule is no replacement for the U.S. Constitution and the cornerstone that individuals are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. By that standard, Judge Kavanaugh is innocent of the uncorroborated allegations that have been made against him, and no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against him based on what has been presented.
Failure to provide Judge Kavanaugh the presumption of innocence makes every future nominee subject to the same criteria where an impossible to corroborate claim from decades before is sufficient to defeat any nominee.
Any thinking person knows the danger this new standard would create in attracting future leaders to serve in our government, and the Senate needs to definitively end this absurd version of Twelve Angry Men by standing up to the mob that demands Kavanaugh scalp for political purposes.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
