A Great Opportunity

IT WAS THE fall of 1987 when Senator Edward Kennedy opened a new era in American politics. In fact, it is perhaps his signature contribution to American politics. An hour after President Reagan nominated Appeals Court Judge Robert Bork to a seat on the United States Supreme Court, Kennedy spoke these words on the floor of the United States Senate:

Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors in midnight raids, children could not be taught about evolution

It was the beginning of the Bork era, in which Democrats arrogated to themselves the right to attack with ruthless character assassination any candidate for the federal bench who did not hew to the liberal line on abortion and the other various “rights” that had been legislated from the federal bench in the era of judicial activism that began in the 1950s with the Warren court.

Ever since, Republicans have walked in fear of being Borked, and Republicans have suffered again and again from vicious campaigns of character assassination from Democratic activists. For Republicans never seemed to be able to avoid getting spattered with mud when Democrats jumped into the gutter.

Central to the Democrats’ power to administer these public floggings was their willing accomplices in the media. Most journalists were liberal and they wanted to preserve the great liberal rights decisions that the Supreme Court had made in the previous generation.

Now they are trying it again. Senator Schumer of New York has stepped into the shoes of Senator Kennedy with a speech made this time moments before President Bush announced the nomination of Samuel Alito for a seat on the Supreme Court, implying that Alito was a racist:

A preliminary review of his record raises real questions about Judge Alito’s judicial philosophy and his commitment to civil rights, workers’ rights, women’s rights, the rights of average Americans which the courts have always looked out for.
Now, it’s sad that the president felt he had to pick a nominee likely to divide America instead of choosing a nominee in the mold of Sandra Day O’Connor who would unify us.
America needs unity now. America needs reaching out to one another more than ever. But the president seems to want to hunker down in his bunker and is more concerned about smoothing the ruffled feathers of the extreme wing of his party than about governing all of America and changing history for the better.

For conservatives and Republicans, the issue cannot be clearer. After twenty years cowering from the monstrous calumnies of liberal senators and liberal activist groups, the Bork era must be brought to a close. Conservatives and Republicans should not live in fear of Borking and character assassination.

This time, once for all, the Democratic tactic of character assassination and obstruction must not stand. It must fail, and be seen to fail in a national convulsion of disgust with the politics of “the eternal gang of ruthless men.”

Fortunately Republicans now have the tools to do the job: our own publicity machine that can meet or beat the organs of the Democratic Party and their willing accomplices in the mainstream media.

Bring. It. On.

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Christopher Chantrill blogs at www.roadtothemiddleclass.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.