Susan Collins … A Fair Vote

I will readily admit that until this past weekend, I’ve not always been a big fan of Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Between her, Jeff Flake, and Lisa Murkowski; it’s sometimes seems like a competition for most liberal Republican in the Senate. Having said that, her performance on the floor of the Senate this past Saturday was nothing short of brave, maybe even historic.

If you haven’t listened to the entire speech, it’s well worth the investment of 45 minutes. Here’s a link to her remarks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR3WajO-WwI

What Senator Collins did was carefully and bravely walk through the vast majority issues that the left has thrown up in opposition to Judge Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court.

She, in the most polite manner, let the world know that the behavior of the left was appalling to say the least. She let it be known that the opposition to Trump’s appointment had nothing to do with Judge Kavanaugh’s qualifications or even with the allegations against him. It was all a put-up job prosecuted for no reason other than Kavanaugh wasn’t a liberal Democrat.

She pointed out the left’s sending an email objecting to Trump’s appointment with a blank line where the nominee’s name should have gone. They sent the email before they even knew the name of the nominee.

She went into great detail about the unsubstantiated allegations of sexual assault against Judge Kavanaugh. She pointed out the absolute lack of corroboration, the nonexistence of evidence, and the total inconsistency of the allegations considered against everything we know about Brett Kavanaugh’s history of decency and respect for others. And she did it all with great respect for Dr. Ford.

In her floor speech, Senator Collins affirmed our most fundamental rule of law — that the accused are innocent until proven guilty. That’s important because increasingly the left has worked to establish a new standard when it comes to allegations of sexual misconduct — accusation alone is enough to prove guilt. At least so long as the accuser is of the right gender. It’s an outrage and it makes a mockery of those women who have actually suffered sexual abuse and harassment.

Senator Collins also examined in minute detail the policy issues the left claims to care about most. She discussed the specifics of Roe vs. Wade to an extent that should easily put the left’s melodrama to rest. She drilled deep on the issue of prosecuting a president who has broken the law — again putting to rest the left’s assertion that Kavanaugh would be a rubber stamp for a Trump acquittal should be ever face the Supreme Court. She continued in great detail through a litany of issues — all those things that the left can’t stop wringing their hands over — again in a way that should have provided relief about his appointment.

Admittedly, she went a little overboard defending Diane Feinstein of California. You’ll remember it was Senator Feinstein who instigated the whole cynical game of “gotcha” at the very last moment before the original confirmation vote. Were it up to me, Feinstein would at least be investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee for not bringing Dr. Ford’s complaint forward earlier. Seems to me we need to learn just who was involved and how far the conspiracy to smear Judge Kavanaugh’s name went.

Alas, we’ve not heard the last of the unsubstantiated, often outlandish, and ridiculous charges against Judge Kavanaugh despite this brave lady’s sensational speech. The protests will certainly continue. It’s likely we’ll see further unsubstantiated accusations.

Now there’s even talk that if Democrats take control of the House this November, they’ll launch impeachment proceedings against Justice Kavanaugh.

The only way we’ll heal the sickness overtaking our nation’s politics is a total rejection of the left’s appalling behavior. That can only happen if voters turnout in mass this November to reject Democrats and elect Republicans.