Saunders: Pendulum has swung too far in sex misconduct claims

Feinstein maintains that she could not mention the allegation to Kavanaugh during hearings without violating Ford’s request for confidentiality. Feinstein apparently never informed Ford that accused individuals have a right to face their accusers.

Instead leaks about the Ford letter, presumably by Democrats affiliated with the Senate committee, revealed the allegation which led Ford to break her silence. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has since invited Ford and Kavanaugh to address his committee. Kavanaugh and Ford are scheduled to testify Thursday.

I tend to believe women who accuse men of sexual misconduct, because these types of episodes happen all the time, unfortunately. When I first heard the accusation, I thought it was very possible a drunken teenage boy forced himself on a vulnerable teenage girl, who fortunately got away.

But Kavanaugh denies Ford’s charge, the witness Ford named refutes her claim, and the pendulum has swung too far on these stories.

Kavanaugh has led a good life. He’s been a good boss, husband and father to the women around him, who enthusiastically vouch for him. He’s passed six investigations by the FBI.

One person’s unsubstantiated accusation, waged decades after the alleged event and at a politically sensitive moment, should not be enough to topple him.

Hypocrisy, toxicity

Conservatives have hammered Democrats for their hypocrisy on sexual harassment and misconduct. Feinstein voted against convicting an impeached Bill Clinton, who was accused of much worse as an adult. Democrats also have hit the mute button after Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., won a primary to be Minnesota attorney general after allegations that he battered a former girlfriend.

They were adults who held public office at the time of the accusations, yet Democrats are holding them to a lower standard than they have set for a teenager.

But hypocrisy isn’t the big problem here. The horror lies in the obscene toxicity behind the left’s rush to bury Kavanaugh.

Senate Democrats could not let go of the resentment they felt at the GOP’s refusal to hold a hearing for Merrick Garland. Before she voted against Trump’s first Supreme Court pick, Neil Gorsuch, Feinstein told MSNBC, “The humiliation it caused a very good man resounds with all of us still.”

Humiliation? Please. Republicans spared Garland a hearing for a job he wasn’t going to get at the time. Now Democrats are looking for payback by engineering an unfair hearing for Kavanaugh.

If the left can’t smear an eminently qualified jurist on the basis of his judicial record, they’ll destroy his reputation. So if he makes it onto the big bench, he’ll have a stain on his name likely to haunt every decision he writes until his dying day.