Travel ban rulings expose left’s hypocrisy, wickedness

OPINION:

Federal judges, apparently tearing up the legal books to look out for the little people — the downtrodden Muslims of the world who are trying to come to America for better jobs and better opportunities but definitely not better terrorism opportunities — have stumbled on what they think are sound arguments to shutter President Donald Trump’s travel ban: His own past words.

But here’s the question that’s floating in the wind: Since when did anybody on the left, to include activist judges, consider Trump and his blunt style of speaking anything but clownish in the first place?

Judge Derrick Watson of Federal District Court in Honolulu, a Barack Obama appointee, wrote in his ruling to block Trump’s travel ban from taking effect that a “reasonable, objective observer” would see this revised version of the president’s executive order as “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously neutral purpose,” The New York Times reported.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Maryland, Theodore Chuang, said similarly in a separate ruling to block the ban, writing that the “history of public statements” from Trump, from White House adviser Stephen Miller and from former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani made clear, in his mind, anyway, the order was “the effectuation of the proposed Muslim ban” made during campaign season, The Hill noted.

But this — the rulings, the justification, the judges’ statements — isn’t just an example of judicial activism and judicial overreach. It’s also an example of the left having it both ways.

All along the campaign trail, all Americans heard was Trump’s a circus act, his remarks are ridiculous, his personality is non-presidential, his demeanor despicable, his rhetoric foolhardy. Yet now, with two failing border control executive orders to his name, it’s Trump’s own rhetoric that’s being pointed to as cause for the court blocks.

You can’t have it both ways, people.

You can’t hold the insane — which is how the left’s painted Trump — responsible for their statements.

You can’t spend all this time and money making sure everybody in America thinks of Trump as a dolt —as a simpleton whose statements ought not be taken seriously — and then turn around, post-executive orders, amnesty dreams a’dyin’, and use Trump’s previous statements as some sort of proof of his unconstitutional, unlawful intent.

Here’s a guy who’s never served a day in political office — a guy whose calling, until being elected president, was business and financing. It’s safe to say the Constitution was not on his table by the bed. And he makes a run for office absent the usual and normal number of political handlers, rising to the top of the crop with little more than blunt speech and common sense talk.

He’s slammed as irrational. He’s condemned for speaking out of turn, without thought or intelligence.

But now, because it befits the left’s purposes, his past statements are to be taken in the light of law — as Official Pronouncements of Policy. And not just his statements, but those of his aides and assistants and supporters as well.

That’s not just unfair. That’s wicked. That’s a full-turn spin on truth that’s character assassination, political partisanship and judicial activism all rolled into one. The left may be applauding, feeling the win of the moment. But these judges ought to be ashamed of using the Constitution, and their creative legal minds, to commit such dastardly deeds. And the left ought to stop playing anti-Trump games with America’s borders, with America’s national security, at the expense of innocent citizens.