Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., administers the Constitutional Oath to Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh in the Justices’ Conference Room, Supreme Court Building. Mrs. Ashley Kavanaugh holds the Bible. Credit: Fred Schilling, Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.
The president who promised “winning” delivered bigtime Saturday and the anti-Trump media had a complete collapse about it. President Trump’s 2016 promise came true with a huge win when the Senate confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh for a seat on the Supreme Court in a 50-48 vote.
The battle over the successful Supreme Court nomination unified the right against the left and the media like nothing seen since Trump first announced he was a presidential candidate.
Conservatives of all stripes saw the uncorroborated attacks on Kavanaugh as part of what NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd called a “‘cold’ civil war.”
DAN GAINOR: ANTI-KAVANAUGH MEDIA AND HOLLYWOOD BIAS EXPLODES IN A BAD WEEK FOR AMERICA
That made this battle too important for the liberal media to play honestly. So they pulled out all the stops. Journalists questioned Kavanaugh’s “judicial temperament,” and the “sham investigation” of his background by the FBI. They called President Trump a “sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot.”
Kavanaugh supporters were even compared to Nazis or the people who would attend lynchings.
CNN mentioned Kavanaugh and “rape” 191 times in 18 days – more than 10 times per day. The network went out of its way to hide the Democratic affiliation and political connections of the man charged with doxxing members of Congress in both TV and online reports. (Hint: He had worked for three different top Democrats.)
And CNN’s Jim Sciutto wrote off the whole attack on Kavanaugh – including allegations that Kavanaugh had been present at a party when a gang rape occurred – as “politics,” claiming “candidates have been accused of horrible things for years.”
CBS put the entirety of the 1990s into the Memory Hole – except for the part about Anita Hill. Anchors asked about the Kavanaugh nomination in an interview with Chelsea Clinton, whose disgraced, disbarred and impeached father has been accused of rape. I bet you can guess who they didn’t ask about.
In one of the more embarrassing episodes, The New York Times let liberal Sunday Magazine writer Emily Bazelon nab the top byline in a silly story that attacked Kavanaugh for “throwing ice” at a man in a bar more than three decades ago.
Back in July, Bazelon had made her opposition to Kavanaugh’s nomination very clear. She tweeted: “As a YaleLawSch grad & lecturer, I strongly disassociate myself from tonight’s praise of Brett Kavanaugh” and criticized the “hard-right turn on voting rights and so much more.”
Even The Washington Post criticized The New York Times for violating “one of the foundational promises of the Times” not to mix opinions with news. A Times spokeswoman admitted, “editors should have used a newsroom reporter for that assignment.” Duh.
But there was a lot more wrong than just that. Watchers of “The View” got a full dose of guilty until proven innocent. Co-host Sunny Hostin raged about personal “truth” and argued “that women should be believed.”
The New York Review of Books blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for the “hyperpolarization of American politics” and as “someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy.”
Just in case that reference was too subtle for anyone, the NYRB piece ran with a photo of Adolf Hitler. Vox ran its version of the article and had a different photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute.
Journalists just adored the “stunning act of bipartisanship” by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and called him a “hero” for stalling the Kavanaugh confirmation for a week by insisting on yet another FBI investigation of the nominee’s background.
But somehow, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia didn’t get the same positive treatment for his bipartisanship when he announced he would vote with Republicans for Kavanaugh.
Despite the wild anti-Kavanaugh bias, some journalists had to admit that this was “perhaps his best week as president,” as CNN’s Political Director David Chalian explained in describing Trump’s success.
Politico headlined one story: “How Trump saved Kavanaugh.” The Washington Post credited Trump with the “turbocharging momentum behind Kavanaugh just as his fate appeared most in doubt.”
And The New York Times summed up Kavanaugh and the good economic news of the week (the lowest unemployment rate since 1969) and described it with the headline: “After Lots of Bluster, Trump Has a Week to Brag About.”
2. News Outlets Openly Opposed the Pick: People used to believe there was actual separation between the news and opinion sections at news organizations. That fantasy went out with drive-in movies and malt shops. Now editorials reflect the “news” product, or vice versa.
The New York Times published its latest anti-Kavanaugh editorial in a state of high dudgeon. “The High Court Brought Low,” it was headlined. “Don’t let Donald Trump and Brett Kavanaugh have the last word about American justice.” Ewww, scary. Cue your haunted house or “Monster Mash” audio.
The editorial went on to blast Republicans Trump, Kavanaugh and McConnell. Here’s epic Timesian anger: “The degrading spectacle of Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation process is behind us; the degrading era of his service on the Supreme Court lies ahead.”
Times staffers have written more than a dozen anti-Kavanaugh editorials, so please understand why they are sore losers. The editorial whined about “a confirmation process, and now almost certainly a justice, tainted by dishonesty, shamelessness, self-pity, indifference to women’s fears and calculated divisiveness.”
The Washington Post generated similar anti-Kavanaugh numbers and encouraged senators to “Vote ‘no’ on Kavanaugh.”
USA Today lacked the vitriol but shared the sentiment. “Vote no on Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation,” it urged. Naturally, both the Los Angeles Times (“Our answer is no.”) and New York Daily News (“For shame, Republicans.”) were opposed to Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation.
3. Hollywood Flipped Out: Left Coast celebrities also went ballistic over Kavanaugh. Leading the pack was entertainer Bette Midler, who also managed to offend her fellow liberals.
Midler tweeted that “women are the n-word of the world.” When she got criticized for that hot take, she posted an explanation tying her original tweet to a Yoko Ono quote from 1972. Twitter users, who mostly weren’t alive in 1972, once more criticized her. She ended up deleting both. HuffPost called her “The Clueless White Lady Of The World.”
Hulu comedian Sarah Silverman didn’t delete her comment calling for Trump to be raped. “I hope you someday understand what it is to be held down against your will and violated. Your compassion is startless,” she tweeted. She also compared Kavanaugh interrupting Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to rape, calling it “the socially acceptable equivalent of putting a hand over her mouth.”
There were many more outlandish reactions, including multiple celebs getting arrested. Theoretical funny person Kathy Griffin used four tweets to tally 14 separate four-letter words, most of them versions of “F---.” She concluded her little rant by telling Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, “F-------- YOUUUUUU” (without the dashes) for supporting Kavanaugh.
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Actress Tatum O’Neal copied that strategy but kept her four-letter words to four letters, telling Collins: “f--- you.”
HBO’s John Oliver ranted about Kavanaugh being an “unhinged partisan” in his vulgar attack that included a comparison to sex with dogs. And 1980s movie star Molly Ringwald called Collins “a betrayer of women.”