The Oldest Trick

     It’s getting so I hate to read the morning news. That’s not a condition conducive to opinion-editorializing. If this farce continues unabated, I might just drop this gig in favor of telling children’s stories.

     Annnnddd what do we have here? Oh, look at this! Another woman has trumpeted a charge of sexual misbehavior against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh! And once again:

• The accuser is a far-left activist;
• She’s named six witnesses, yet all six deny having witnessed what she claims to have occurred;
• The New Yorker, once a worthwhile publication...well, the cartoons were funny, anyway...has published this bit of entirely uncorroborated scandal-mongering as if it deserves anyone’s credence;
• And Senate Democrats have immediately jumped on it as automatically disqualifying Kavanaugh from the Court.

     Does anyone else see a pattern here? Don’t all answer at once, now.

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     One unverifiable allegation of misconduct from a dubious source hasn’t been enough to sink the Kavanaugh nomination. However, it was enough to delay proceedings, temporarily keeping Kavanaugh off the Court. The Democrats consider that a sufficient success to be worth repeating the tactic. And why shouldn’t they? Delay sufficiently prolonged is indistinguishable from defeat.

     Once again, the late, undervalued though immeasurably insightful C. Northcote Parkinson is on the case:

     The theory of ND [Negation by Delay] depends upon establishing a rough idea of what amount of delay will equal negation. If we suppose that a drowning man calls for help, evoking the reply ‘in due course,’ a judicious pause of five minutes may constitute, for all practical purposes, a negative response. Why? Because the delay is greater than the non-swimmer’s expectation of life....Delays are thus deliberately designed as a form of denial and are extended to cover the life-expectation of the person whose proposal is being pigeon-holed. Delay is the deadliest form of denial.

     As regards Judge Brett Kavanaugh, endless delay would be the Democrats’ grand prize, effectively preventing his nomination from ever receiving a vote. However, they can’t rely upon any single stroke toward delaying the vote as “conclusive.” They must mount a barrage of nebulous accusations, each of which can “justify” demands for further investigation, negotiations over the terms of testimony, and the like. This will ensure that when the steam has bled out of the current “controversy” there are other shots in the magazine, ready to be fired.

     It really is the oldest trick in the book. Don’t say “no,” outright; that sounds stubborn, unpleasant. Say “Just wait a minute,” and keep saying it until your adversary throws up his hands and walks away. Then you can claim the field by default.

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     The question that demands our attention this morning is a simple one: Why does it work? How can it work, given that the dismissal of the first few such accusations should constitute conclusive evidence of bad faith among the accusers and their supporters?

     Quite simply, the Democrats can keep the shitstorm raging for as long as they can keep the legacy media blathering about it. Organs such as the New Yorker are endlessly willing to do as they’ve been told by their Democrat masters. It’s their strategy for retaining the shrunken rump of their formerly robust readerships.

     For one “respectable” press organ to perpetuate such a “controversy” is sometimes enough, if that organ retains a sufficient veneer of seriousness from its days of wine and roses. For essentially the whole of the legacy media to do so creates a barrier that cannot be crossed without more courage and resolve than Senate Republicans possess.

     You asked why the seemingly discredited and disgraced legacy media remain a potent force? Now you know.

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     If there’s a grand strategy behind it all, it would be to discourage good persons who’ve done things they regret in the remote past from contending for high offices, whether elective or appointive. It’s a working postulate of adulthood that no one’s past is entirely sinless. We’ve all done things we regret and would rather forget. The only safe harbor lies in leaving the past to fade from memory.

     The paradox here is that we all know that. What’s the saying? “We’re only human,” or some such? And with the conspicuous exceptions of Jesus of Nazareth and his mother, everyone who’s ever been born or ever will must repent of something before facing the Particular Judgment.

     Let’s stipulate that Brett Kavanaugh never, ever committed a sexual sin – that the accusations to that effect are fabrications in their entirety. A sufficient investigation of his past might well establish that beyond a reasonable doubt...but what else would emerge in the course of such an investigation? Did he ever cheat on an exam? Did he ever speak harshly to a child? Did he ever “borrow” some office supplies for home use? Unless Brett Kavanaugh is Christ come again, there’ll almost surely be something in his past that the Left can use, and a sufficiently prolonged, sufficiently microscopic investigation will ferret it out.

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     The Left’s “standards apply to thee, not to me” position has been battered of late, especially as regards accusations of sexual misconduct. Well verified instances brought down Al Franken, Elliot Spitzer, and Harvey Weinstein, among others. Those blows have left them smarting, and perhaps particularly eager to “get a little of their own back.” That makes some of this tempest understandable, though it doesn’t excuse the presentation of nebulous and unsubstantiated charges – charges impossible to refute under a guilty-until-you-prove-yourself-innocent standard – to destroy a good man’s reputation. Still more to the point is something I’ve written about before:

Success Breeds Emulation.

     I guarantee that if the Left succeeds in torpedoing the Kavanaugh nomination with these accusations, they’ll have a stockpile ready for the next conservative nominated to the Supreme Court – or anywhere else.