“OK, We Lost”
You are the judge today. Upon taking office, you took an oath to decide each case on the applicable law and the facts.
Your docket today has only two cases ready for trial. They appear to be identical cases involving theft of merchandize from a store. The only apparent difference is that the defendant in one case is a female and the other is a male.
At trial, however, there are glaring differences.
The female is an 18 year old from a broken home. She is basically the sole support of her family and has served as the surrogate mother of her younger siblings. There is no previous arrest or offense record.
She was caught walking out of the store on a cold, blustery, wet day wearing a $50.00 windbreaker she had not paid for.
When stopped by security, she broke into tears, sincerely apologized, and claimed that she could not afford to buy something like that windbreaker to protect her from the water where she had to work to support her family.
The facts in the male’s case, however, were different. He was 42 and in a stable marriage with two teenaged children. He was employed with a salary placing him in the middle-class.
When arrested, he was wearing a suit with tie and coat but had an expensive I-Phone that he had not paid for in an inside coat pocket.
His explanation was that he needed a new phone, had come to the store without his wallet, and intended to come back to pay for the phone. His prior records, however, indicate that he is a proven kleptomaniac.
Ok, your Honor, will your rulings on these two cases be identical? Of course not. You will decide each case on the different facts in each case.
And that is what makes the recent Senate hearings on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Count so infuriatingly frustrating.
How are you going to vote on Roe v. Wade? How are you going to vote on executive privilege? How will you vote on the President being subject to subpoena? And on and on.
There seems to be a complete lack of understanding that the answers to each of those questions will depend on the facts presented in each case.
The Senators asking these questions are assumed or presumed to be smart people. Their questions and harassment of Judge Kavanaugh, however, make them look like they flunked out of grade school.
Further reflections on their abilities arise when they keep insisting on receiving hundreds of thousands of pages of memos with which Kavanaugh may have been involved when he was an administrative assistant in the George W. Bush White House.
Anyone who believes that any of those documents would actually be looked at by a single Senator should step to the back of the line of those interested in justice.
The most aggravating aspect of this whole situation is that it appeared that Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination would be confirmed. But the Democrats continue their tradition of harassing Supreme Court nominees. Compare today’s treatment of Brett Kavanaugh with the Democrats’ treatment of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas a few years ago.
Particularly galling is last week’s ridiculous action by Senator Diane Feinstein, a senator I previously respected and admired. What could she possibly believe her letter to the FBI containing an allegation that Kavanaugh committed some type of sexual offense thirty odd years ago while he was in high school would accomplish.
She had this information for more than three months, but did not make a peep about it during the Judiciary Committee’s examination of Judge Kavanaugh. Is she starting another, in the words of Justice Thomas another “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks“? In this situation it would be a high -tech lynching of a distinguished judge.
Sending such a letter at this time makes Feinstein appear much more disqualified to hold an office than any possible disqualification of Kavanaugh.
This is the worst case of dirty politics in memory.
So here's the perspective.
Youngsters are taught to not be sore losers. If you lose a game, accept the loss as a learning experience and move on to the next challenge.
Here we are, two years after the Democrats lost the Presidential race and they still cannot or will not accept the loss. What a shame that they cannot say, “OK, we lost. We do not like the results, but we have to work with these people for the good of the country.”
If they did that, it just might add some energy to the anticipated Blue Wave in November.
In the meantime, go on and confirm Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination and watch how he acts on the facts that come before him.
enough
