OPINION:
Former President Donald Trump’s entire political career can be boiled down to a four-month period in 2018.
On July 9 of that year, Mr. Trump nominated Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, a crucial swing vote who, for 30 years, upheld the legal fantasy of “abortion rights” that are nowhere to be found in the Constitution. Mr. Kennedy was placed on the court by President Ronald Reagan, a Republican.
On Oct. 6, Mr. Kavanaugh was finally confirmed.
The four-month period between Mr. Kavanaugh’s nomination and his eventual confirmation was one of the ugliest, nastiest and most dishonest periods in American political history.
Elected lawmakers made up stories smearing Mr. Kavanaugh. The political press shamelessly spread the malicious smears and manufactured new smears of their own.
They accused him of being a liar, a drunk and a serial rapist. Among the most ridiculous, disgusting and entirely unfounded charges they made up was that Mr. Kavanaugh participated in a gang rape.
The absurdity of the charges might have been humorous if not for the destruction of a good man’s sterling reputation and the vicious attacks on his wife and two young daughters.
In any normal political era in Washington involving normal Washington politicians, Mr. Kavanaugh would have been ordered to withdraw his nomination, or it would have been withdrawn for him by the White House. Or cowardly Republicans in the Senate would have cut and run, as they so often do.
Mr. Kavanaugh would have gone home — back to his private life — a broken man with a broken family and spent the rest of his life as an accused rapist denied the opportunity to clear his name.
But one man — one man alone — stood in the breach and refused to allow the injustice of so many lies from so many political vermin to prevail. He took every arrow he could to protect the innocent man and his family against the mob of vicious liars.
Mr. Trump — with his “broad shoulders,” as his vice president liked to say back then — refused to surrender. And in the end, justice prevailed, though Mr. Kavanaugh and his family will never be repaid for what these people put them through.
Once on the Supreme Court, Mr. Kavanaugh — along with two other new Trump-appointed justices — would overturn Roe v. Wade, the single most glaring attack on the U.S. Constitution in the past half a century.
So it is particularly amusing to hear Republicans in Washington today accuse Mr. Trump of being some kind of threat to the Constitution. After all, Mr. Trump alone stands as the single greatest defender and restorer of the Constitution alive today — especially among Republican politicians.
It is worth noting that many of the Supreme Court justices who maintained the 50-year assault on the Constitution by upholding the legal fantasy of Roe v. Wade were placed on the court by Republican presidents who claimed to be “constitutionalists.” Mr. Trump is the only president in 50 years to score a perfect record protecting the Constitution against the Roe assault.
President George W. Bush might have claimed this mantle, except he first tried nominating his secretary to the high court before outraged conservatives bullied him into replacing her with Justice Samuel Alito, who would later write the brilliant undoing of Roe.
Mr. Trump’s former vice president, who once spoke dreamily of Mr. Trump’s “broad shoulders,” now says Mr. Trump is a threat to the Constitution because Mr. Trump fought too vigorously against what he believed was an unfair and unconstitutional election.
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s national security adviser, retired Gen. Keith Kellogg, issued a statement this week describing the difference in leadership styles between the two men.
“President Donald J. Trump stands apart as a figure of unwavering determination, a deep vision for America, and the courage to take a stand where others wilt,” he said. “His bold and dramatic leadership style during his presidency resulted in significant achievements for our country.”
Gen. Kellogg described the leadership style of Mr. Pence quite differently.
“It is not the decisive leadership that we have seen from President Trump,” he wrote.
“Where President Trump is bold and unafraid to challenge the status quo, Mr. Pence has often chosen the passive route, avoiding confrontation. This lack of assertiveness, combined with an over-reliance on failed political consultants … has demonstrated a laissez-faire leadership style unworthy of the presidency.”
And the Constitution.
• Charles Hurt is the opinion editor at The Washington Times.
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