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Feinstein Gets Bashed by Liberal Paper for Handling of Kavanaugh Accusations

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There’s only one thing we should be able to agree on, as a nation, when it comes to the Brett Kavanaugh allegations: Sen. Dianne Feinstein is a dumpster fire of a human being in the same way Bikini Atoll was a fire of an incendiary test-run.

Given that the very senior senator from California had the letter alleging Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford at some point in the early 1980s (we seem to have settled on 1982, although not without some very deliberate ambiguity when it came to the accusations) back in July, that would have been an awfully good time to bring it up, no?

Not only did she decide not to bring it up when she met with Kavanaugh, she didn’t really bring it up with anyone at all, really. The very existence of the letter was disclosed the Wednesday after hearings ended by The Intercept. Given that publication’s rather friendly nature with the more extreme elements of the Anglophone left (see also: Winner, Reality), one wonders just how much strategery was behind that “leak.”

I don’t think I need to take you through the various machinations in terms of how that got us to where we are now: Feinstein’s cryptic nonsense about forwarding a letter to the FBI, a New Yorker piece in which the contents were detailed, The Washington Post’s piece in which Christine Blasey Ford came forward and now we’re fighting over preconditions for testimony and/or an FBI investigation. (They’ve already conducted one of those, including a background check, but whatever.)

The point is that this looks every bit like a political stunt. If it isn’t, Sen. Feinstein owes the accuser and America a tremendous apology; this allegation is now totally indissoluble from the timing with which it was lodged. Either way, she’s done us all a tremendous disservice, something even her hometown San Francisco Chronicle realizes.

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First, for those of you not familiar, the Chronicle isn’t going to win any grants from The Heritage Foundation, which makes it pretty standard for the city it calls home.

However, in an editorial published earlier this week, they excoriated Feinstein for her treatment of Christine Blasey Ford’s accusatory letter.

“Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s treatment of a more than 3-decade-old sexual assault allegation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was unfair all around. It was unfair to Kavanaugh, unfair to his accuser and unfair to Feinstein’s colleagues — Democrats and Republicans alike — on the Senate Judiciary Committee,” the Monday editorial read.

“Feinstein, a California Democrat, took the worst possible course by waiting until almost a week after Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing was completed to ominously announce that she had turned over ‘information from an individual’ about Kavanaugh to the FBI, and adding that she would be honoring the woman’s ‘strongly requested’ confidentiality.

Do you think Dianne Feinstein acted wrongly in not disclosing the existence of the Ford letter until after hearings were over?

“Feinstein has been around Washington long enough to know that her opaque statement guaranteed that the contents of the letter, sent by a Stanford law professor on behalf of the accuser, would be pursued and publicized in short order,” the paper noted. “And they were.”

After going through the basics of the accusation, the Chronicle continued to attack Feinstein for her indifference to the accusation.

“In concealing the accusation she had received in July, according to reports, Feinstein did a disservice to her Judiciary Committee colleagues, who might have wanted to determine if corroborating accounts were available, or at least question Kavanaugh about the accusation in a closed session,” the editorial board wrote. “Instead, Feinstein’s colleagues were left in the dark. The letter had been sent to Feinstein through Rep. Anna Eshoo’s office.

“The relevance of a 53-year-old man’s alleged criminal act in high school to his fitness for the judiciary is a fair matter of debate. After all, juvenile records are sealed for good reason: Young people who make serious mistakes, even violent ones, should have a chance at redemption without being tarnished for life. Yet a good case could be made that participation in a sexual assault, no matter how long ago, is a disqualifier for a seat on the highest court of the land.

“The regrettable outcome here is that the Senate Judiciary Committee never had a chance to contemplate those difficult questions or consider the merits of this accusation while they were holding hearings on the nomination,” they continued.

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The Chronicle goes on to blame the Republicans, of course, whose “refusal to allow full access to documents from his tenure in the George W. Bush administration” and “rush toward a confirmation vote Thursday” are the real problems here. My assumption is that the Chronicle board could be given Kavanaugh’s kindergarten progress reports and we’d still be talking about how unfair the whole thing was, so that’s hardly stupefying.

What is, however, is the Chronicle’s treatment of Feinstein. Considered a secular saint in a state where liberalism is a creed and gun control is a sacrament, Feinstein has long ascended past the ranks of us ordinary humans into a special realm where her decisions aren’t to be questioned.

Like all deified humans, however, she too has fallen — fallen to the point where even the Chronicle is willing to call her out for her despicable handling of the Kavanaugh accusation.

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C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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