Pavlich: The left’s tiring hysteria on Kavanaugh

It’s been 24 hours since President Trump nominated 53-year-old United States Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Since the announcement from the White House, the opposition to his nomination has only become increasingly hostile and emotional from the left. 

We knew this extreme posturing was coming. After all, leftist groups supportive of the Democratic Party and its candidates made signs opposing all of President Trump’s potential picks, tossing aside the ones that said Amy Coney Barrett, Raymond Kethledge and Thomas Hardiman as soon as Kavanaugh was announced.

Not to mention, Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) took to the Senate floor to denounce President Trump’s nominee before we even had a name. Because he didn’t yet know who Trump would choose, he attacked the Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo, an outside judicial adviser to the president, instead.

{mosads}“Mr. Leonard Leo is the man who assembled President Trump’s list of potential Supreme Court nominees. And no one, no one, has been more dedicated to overturning Roe v. Wade than Leonard Leo,” Schumer said. “Whomever the president selects tonight, if that nominee is from the pre-approved list selected by Leo and the Heritage Foundation, everyone ought to understand what it means for the freedom of women to make their own health care decisions, and for the protection for Americans with pre-existing health conditions: Those rights will be gravely threatened.”

In the aftermath of an official announcement, the fear mongering has been ratcheted up to new levels, complete with accusations of millions of lives being threatened if Kavanaugh is confirmed.

“The nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh will threaten the lives of millions of Americans for decades to come and will morph our Supreme Court into a political arm of the right-wing Republican Party,” former Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe warned.

“With Brett Kavanaugh as his SCOTUS pick, Mr. Trump is trying to force his repressive, bigoted agenda into our courts — and our lives. If confirmed, American citizens will hemorrhage basic rights, and corporations will have an open door for a hostile takeover,” leftist billionaire Tom Steyer panicked.

“From criminal justice to immigrant justice, voting rights, and the rights of LGBTQ people, our civil and human rights hang in the balance with this Supreme Court nomination. Senators must put country over party to protect their constituents, the Constitution, and civil and human rights by rejecting this extreme nomination,” Vanita Gupta, the far-left president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights proclaimed.

And did you hear? The so-called “war on women” is back in full swing with contraception bans.

“Forget abortion or same-sex marriage — contraception could be banned under Justice Kavanaugh,” Daily Beast national editor Justin Miller claimed.

All of this is, of course, nonsense and the hyperbolic claims being made are becoming increasingly transparent by the hour.

Since the day Justice Kennedy announced his retirement, the left’s screaming has been about Roe v. Wade. It turns out, Kavanaugh has essentially nothing in his court opinion history addressing the issue. This of course means a moving of the goal posts, with the left now focusing on his rulings that favor limiting the federal government’s role in the economy and deregulation. They’ve also pivoted to ObamaCare.  

Kavanaugh isn’t an extremist. He’s a conservative who has followed in the footsteps of Justice Kennedy for years — first as a clerk. Ironically, Kennedy has been praised as a liberal hero on the court for three decades.

During his remarks at the White House, Kavanaugh showed how much he has learned from his mentor.

“Thirty years ago, President Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy to the Supreme Court. The framers established that the Constitution is designed to secure the blessings of liberty,” Kavanaugh said. “Justice Kennedy devoted his career to securing liberty. I am deeply honored to be nominated to fill his seat on the Supreme Court.”

“My judicial philosophy is straightforward. A judge must be independent and must interpret the law, not make the law,” he continued. “A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.”

Politically, opposing Kavanaugh for the sake of the resistance is the wrong fight for Democrats to take on before the 2018 midterm elections. Conservatives and Republicans are mobilized in far greater numbers than Democrats on this issue. President Trump nominated Kavanaugh because he qualified to sit on America’s highest court. His 300 opinions over the past 12 years prove it and Democrats would serve the country well by focusing on substance, rather than emotion, as we move forward with the confirmation process.

Pavlich is the editor for Townhall.com and a Fox News contributor.