Pay no attention to hysteria on the left

On July 23, 1990, in front of a half- empty White House briefing room, President George H. W. Bush announced his pick to replace Justice William Brennan on the Supreme Court. Bush said David Souter, a little known New Hampshire state Supreme Court judge and former state attorney general, was “committed to interpreting, not making the law.”

Before the flash bulbs had cooled, the professional outrage machine was out for blood. The liberal People for the American Way unearthed a document in which Souter referred to abortion as the “killing of unborn children,” which prompted the president of the National Organization for Women to describe him as a “Neanderthal.”

One doesn’t need to be steeped in legal arcana to know how this story ended. Neanderthal or not, Souter couldn’t have been more sympathetic to progressive legal causes, writing decisions as if he were wearing a pink knit hat. Barely two years after his confirmation, Souter authored the most prominent abortion decision to uphold Roe v. Wade, 1992’ s Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

President Trump’s pick of U. S. Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch is following the same pattern, proving once again that the seriousness of political rhetoric is inversely proportionate to the gravity of the debate.

Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer of New York, who served in the chamber when Gorsuch was unanimously con- firmed to the federal bench in 2006, said the burden is on Gorsuch to “prove himself to be within the legal mainstream.”

According to stalwart progressive Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Trump has “made it clear ... he is intent on creating more division in our country.” She cited Gorsuch’s “deeply troubling record,” particularly rulings “against disabled students, against workers and against women’s reproductive health care.”

Of course, feigned outrage over Gorsuch’s “divisiveness” is a stand- in for frustrations Democrats feel over Senate Republicans’ blockade of Judge Merrick Garland nearly a year ago. Garland had been approved to the D. C. circuit court in 1997 by a 76 to 23 vote.

Few Democrats are willing to concede opposition to Gorsuch is payback; they’re launching attacks that might as well have been recycled from previous Supreme Court fights.

In 2005, NARAL Pro- Choice America aired a television ad insinuating that Bush nominee John Roberts was somehow complicit in an abortion clinic bombing, a slander that forced it to pull the commercial off the air.

To survive, Gorsuch will need his tart sense of humor. He once dissented by quoting Charles Dickens’ observation that the law can often be “a ass — a idiot.” One wonders whether he thinks the same could be said for those trying to defeat his nomination.