Character assassination

Attacks on Kavanaugh questionable

THE Senate Judiciary Committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, like others in her party, apparently has forgotten that in America, the burden of proof falls on the accuser, not the accused.

Thus Feinstein played a starring role in her party’s efforts to slime the reputation of Brett Kavanaugh, an eminently qualified jurist nominated by President Donald Trump to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

On Sept. 13, Feinstein released a statement about an anonymous accuser’s unspecified “information” on the judge, which the senator said she referred to federal authorities. Feinstein released the statement without even asking Kavanaugh about the charges.

Feinstein had plenty of time to ask. On July 30, college professor Christine Blasey Ford wrote a letter to the senator in which she asserted that a drunken Kavanaugh — then a high school student — “physically and sexually assaulted” her “in the early 1980s.” The then-teenage Kavanaugh groped the then-younger Ford, tried to pull off her clothes and put a hand over her mouth, Ford wrote, before she got away.

Ford provided little detail as to the time — or even year — or the place. Her corroboration was limited essentially to notes taken by a therapist when Ford first revealed the story in 2012.

On Tuesday, Trump also faulted Feinstein for not asking Kavanaugh about the charges when they met one-on-one. If the charges were so serious, one wonders, how could Feinstein say nothing?

The Democrat from California maintains that she could not mention the allegation to Kavanaugh without violating Ford’s request for confidentiality. Feinstein apparently never informed Ford that accused individuals have a right to face their accusers.

Instead leaks about the Ford letter, presumably by Democrats affiliated with the Senate committee, revealed the allegation and led Ford to break her silence. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has since invited Ford and Kavanaugh to address his committee Monday. Kavanaugh accepted the invitation; Ford has said she wants the FBI to first investigate the alleged incident before she testifies.

I tend to believe women who accuse men of sexual misconduct, because unfortunately these types of episodes happen all the time. When I first heard the accusation, I thought it was very possible a drunken teenage boy forced himself on a vulnerable teenage girl, who fortunately got away.

But Kavanaugh denies Ford’s charge, the witness Ford named refutes her claim, and the pendulum has swung too far on these stories.

Kavanaugh has led a good life: He’s been a good boss, husband and father to the women around him, who enthusiastically vouch for him. He’s passed six investigations by the FBI.

One person’s unsubstantiated accusation, made decades after the alleged event and at a politically sensitive moment, should not be enough to topple him.

On Twitter, conservatives have hammered Democrats for their hypocrisy on sexual harassment and misconduct.

Feinstein voted against convicting an impeached Bill Clinton, who was accused of much worse as an adult. Democrats also have hit the mute button after Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., won his party’s primary in a bid to become Minnesota attorney general after allegations that he battered a former girlfriend.

They were adults who held public office at the time of the accusations, yet Democrats are holding them to a lower standard than they have set for a teenager.

But hypocrisy isn’t the big problem here. The horror lies in the obscene toxicity behind the left’s rush to bury Kavanaugh.

When Trump picked Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, Senate Democrats had

women. In the seven they lost, the average gap was … 9.1 percent.

When male Republican candidates are struggling, it is easy to look at the polls, which will invariably show them with large deficits among women, and conclude that they need to do something to “address the gender gap”: make new ads with female relatives saying how great they are, or move left on abortion, or tout their record of helping women who own small businesses.

Some of those steps might even be helpful. The reasoning is nonetheless unsound. Unpopularity among women doesn’t necessarily mean that Republicans have to do something to boost their support among women specifically. They might, for example, be better off trying to improve their showing among voters without college degrees of both sexes.

There are some signs that this year’s midterms will go badly for Republicans. If so, it will be attributed to women going for the Democrats, and the role of Trump and Kavanaugh in their votes will be endlessly dissected. But a poor showing among women is exactly what you would expect in a bad year for Republicans. Look at the Republican and Democratic years together, though, and there’s a point that’s obvious but rarely made: Republicans’ weakness among women hasn’t been any more electorally consequential than Democrats’ weakness among men. If the gender gap is a problem, it’s not for just one party.

Tim Brinton