Penna Dexter

Just days into Smear 2.0 of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial that accurately described the matter as “The Assault on the Supreme Court.”

The Journal’s Editorial Board was spot on in assessing the Left’s motivations, stating, “The attacks on Justice Kavanaugh are an attempt at intimidation to influence his opinions.”

As a nation, we’re already figuring out that Justice Kavanaugh will not be intimidated.

Failing to intimidate, the Journal continues: “they want to portray conservative opinions of the current Court as illegitimate.” These attacks on Kavanaugh are meant to plant seeds of doubt about the entire Court.

The Journal goes on to describe other aspects of this strategy, which includes “regular campaigns lecturing Chief Justice John Roberts about ‘legitimacy’ whenever a case with political implications is heard.” And then there are the vows by presidential candidates to add justices, to pack the Court, if they take power.

Debra Katz, attorney for Kavanaugh’s original accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, articulated the primary reason for these assaults in an April speech at the University of Baltimore. Of Justice Kavanaugh, she said, “He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him and that is important.”

The Left needs the courts. It is exhibiting what Vice President Pence calls a sort of desperation. Its agenda, proposals from a wealth tax to the Green New Deal, will be challenged and need court approval.

So, as the charges against Justice Kavanaugh are discredited, the Left ignores that and simply doubles down.

In another column, The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn unpacks the “flimsiness” of the allegations. But the Left, he writes, wants this to be “all about the asterisk.” We must not let it be so. And we should be thankful for — and pray for — the courage of Justice Kavanaugh.