| Sen Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Photo via Wikipedia |
As we are now are in the year-ending holiday season, it's time for me to announce the tongue-in-cheek annual mock awards. Nope, there is no trophy, stipend or any other recognition beyond a few bytes in cyberspace.
There were other contenders for this year's honor of Dems behaving badly, including the prominent lawyer who represents a porn actress, attacked Justice Kavanaugh over alleged improprieties with women and then was recently arrested on allegations of domestic violence and various socialists who won elections as Democrats, notably Ocasio-Cortez. We could also have chosen DNC chair Perez who calls leftists like Ocasio-Cortez the "future"of the Democratic Party. I even thought about recognizing the suicidal voters of Illinois who decided to replace the only check and balances Gov. Rauner with a Dem-dominated legislature with a plutocrat in a state with sky-high debt and property taxes and a public pension system which is one recession away from insolvency.
I don't discount the possibility that some Democrat could emerge over the next 5 weeks who would give Sen. Feinstein some real competition, but any late-emerging contender will be actively considered for next year's award.
Let me be clear that as a libertarian, I have some real concerns about Justice Kavanaugh on Fourth Amendment issues. But any regular reader knows that I as a conservative Democrat left the Democratic Party over the sabotage of the late Bork's nomination and that concern deepened with a diabolical attack on Clarence Thomas. The Democrats have continually politicized court nominations (Miguel Estrada's selection under Bush Jr. immediately comes to mind), whereas Republicans have never resorted to similar tactics and have generally accommodated, at least through Clinton, judicial nominees they didn't necessarily agree with.
But what Dianne Feinstein did during Kavanaugh's confirmation process is beyond contemptible. She had received a complaint about the judge based on allegations from his high school years. I do not find Ms. Ford's allegations credible for reasons I've specified in previous posts and won't repeat here. But here's the point: Feinstein never relayed the allegations to the FBI, she never mentioned the allegation in open committee but as the committee concluded with a likely confirmation, somehow Ms. Ford's identity had been leaked, and Kavanaugh found himself and his family threatened and his personal reputation soiled, on little, if any evidence, beyond an accusation which first surfaced less than a decade ago 30 years after the alleged assault.
What Feinstein as ranking minority leader on the Judiciary Committee did is reprehensible and make her the obvious selection for this year's "honor".
