Democrats' Official Anti-Kavanaugh Ad Backfires When They Use Photo of Wrong Man
The Democratic Party attacked President Donald Trump’s pick to replace Anthony Kennedy on the U.S. Supreme Court by posting a darkened, sinister looking image of the wrong jurist.
The day Trump nominated Washington D.C. Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the party’s official Twitter account posted an altered image of 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Hardiman.
The Pennsylvania-based jurist had been among the four finalists identified by multiple media outlets ahead of Trump’s announcement. In the closing days before the Monday night reveal, some in the media had been speculating that Hardiman seemed to be rising to the fore.
“Let’s be clear: A vote for #KavanaughSCOTUS would be a vote to rip health care from American families and deny women their rights to make their own health care choices,” a now-deleted tweet coupled with an image of Hardiman read.
John Cooper with the Heritage Foundation caught the error.
https://twitter.com/thejcoop/status/1016761516182339584
Jeremiah Dunleavy with Judicial Watch saw it too, tweeting, “The Democrats just put out an article attacking Judge Kavanaugh but they used an image of Judge Hardiman instead and I cannot stop laughing.”
The liberal Women’s March organizers made an equally embarrassing gaffe, which Fox News reporter Alex Pappas had fun with in a Twitter post on Monday night.
The group had obviously pre-written their press release attacking Trump’s pick before they even knew who it was, leaving the space blank with “XX.”
https://twitter.com/AlexPappas/status/1016499063657844736
Following Trump’s announcement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer predictably called Kavanaugh “way outside of the mainstream.”
He made a similar pronouncement last year regarding Justice Neil Gorsuch after Trump nominated him last.
Kavanaugh is a Yale Law School graduate, who clerked for Kennedy, and was appointed to the D.C. circuit court in 2006 by George W. Bush.
In a piece for USA Today, Caroline Van Zile, a former legal clerked for Kavanaugh, noted that the Supreme Court has adopted the judge’s case opinions an impressive 13 times. That hardly sounds like a judge who is outside of the mainstream.
While the Democrats do not like Kavanaugh, praise on the right has been pretty much universal.
As Barack Obama reminded Republicans shortly assuming office, “elections have consequences.”
Trump, perhaps more than any presidential candidate in U.S. history, ran on the issue of judicial appointments by taking the unprecedented step of a releasing a list of potential Supreme Court nominees.
He won, and staying true to his word, is choosing from that list.
Republican senators certainly did not like Obama’s or Clinton’s choices for the high court, but enough GOP members of good will came together to allow them to go through with strong majorities.
Justice Elena Kagan was confirmed with a nearly two-thirds vote of the Senate. Sonia Sotomayor garnered support from 68 senators.
Bill Clinton’s picks of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer received overwhelming majority support despite their left-leaning views, with just a handful of senators voting against.
Trump’s judicial picks are in the mainstream of Republican/conservative thought.
They obviously are not who Hillary Clinton would have chosen if she were president, but that should not be the standard Democrat senators adopt for in considering whether to offer their support.
It’s time to exit the total resistance that can’t even get the picture right and recognize elections do have consequences.
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