As President Trump incurs the weekly public wrath of pundits, Democrats – who have engaged in far worse behavior – go unnoticed and unpunished. The preposterous double standard could not be starker.
On Wednesday night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren took to Twitter with a blistering, bullying set of fabrications. She erroneously accused the new Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, of bringing “racism, sexism & bigotry” to the Justice Department and described him as a man full of “radical hatred.”
{mosads}Was Sessions engaging in “radical hatred” when he aided in prosecuting the head of the KKK in Alabama and insisted on the death penalty? When he signed 10 pleadings targeting segregation in his state? When he voted for a 25-year extension of the Voting Rights Act? Or how about when he co-sponsored a bill with Warren herself awarding Selma marchers a congressional gold medal?
Not only did Warren engage in hypocrisy with her defamatory tweets, she rewrote history.
And where was the onslaught of criticism from the punditry class? Trump is lambasted when he takes to Twitter with far milder tweets, but Warren can level the vilest and most inaccurate mistruths and she is not only immune from criticism, she is praised as a heroine and her detractors are slammed.
When Warren violated Senate rules and was penalized because of it, the media flattery ensued. “Elizabeth Warren persists”, “Elizabeth Warren was told to be quiet. Women can relate” and “The shutdown of Elizabeth Warren in the Senate follows a sexist playbook” were but a few of the media headlines. Meanwhile, the only “sexism” going on was the fact that a liberal woman can tweet falsehoods with impunity while a conservative male – namely the president – has been derided for doing far less.
The double standard was at play again this week in the reaction to Trump’s critique of the judiciary. When the president labeled a federal judge who made a flawed decision a “so-called judge” and said “courts seem to be so political,” the commentary crowd suggested democracy itself was at risk. One branch of government critiqued a co-equal branch of government, and the apocalyptic predictions ensued.
But where were the end-of-the-world forecasts when members of the legislature repeatedly belittled the president in far harsher terms? Where were the pundits when a sitting senator, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, labeled the president’s actions “abhorrent and unacceptable” Wednesday evening? Or how about when House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called Trump “incompetent and… dangerous”?
And where was the derision when Rep. John Lewis called Trump an illegitimate president? Lewis can call the president illegitimate and he is a heroic warrior for doing so; meanwhile, Trump places “so-called” before the word judge and he is a villain.
In short, while the legislature is free to deride the executive in the harshest of terms, the executive may not scrutinize the judiciary.
Unless you’re Barack Obama, that is. In 2015, speaking about King v. Burwell, the then president stated, “This should be an easy case. Frankly, it probably shouldn’t even have been taken up.” Similarly, Trump said Wednesday, “a bad high school student would understand” the law should be “clear to anybody.” Obama was largely immune from criticism, while Trump was excoriated.
And for those suggesting that Trump is intimidating the judiciary – whose federal members have life tenure – where was the concern when Obama publicly censured the Supreme Court to their face during the 2010 State of the Union saying, “[L]ast week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that, I believe, will open the floodgates for special interests”? The apoplectic backlash was noticeably absent.
As President Trump incurs the ire of commentators, liberal Democrats are held to a different standard – a far lower standard, which permits them to act as petulant children. Fortunately for Republicans, while they may not have the pundits on their side, they have the discerning eye of the people, fully capable of separating fact from fiction.
Kayleigh McEnany is a CNN political commentator who recently received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She graduated from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and also studied politics at Oxford University.
The views of contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.