One fully expects in each news cycle to hear some Democratic presidential wannabe, pundit, or drive-by journalist step forward and proclaim in the manner of the late Sen. Joe McCarthy: "I have in my hand a list of women whom nominee X molested, assaulted, fondled, and exposed himself to that disqualifies him for the position he seeks."  Never mind that the charges will be vague, uncorroborated, even contradicted by alleged witnesses, and deal with events at an unknown date, time, and place.  The charges have been made and must be investigated.

McCarthy was looking for communists in the State Department and other places in government, and while some did exist, just as predators preying on young women do exist, so does character assassination in the name of pursuing a political agenda.

Now we have Ronan Farrow in The New Yorker reporting on another vague, uncorroborated, and contradictory charge against Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh, this time by a Yale classmate, Deborah Ramirez, alleging that Kavanaugh exposed himself at another one of those drunken parties we are told he was so fond of attending.  Yet again, we have a questionable account: 

The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer.  For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices.  She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident[.] ...

In a statement, two of those male classmates who Ramirez alleged were involved in the incident, the wife of a third male student she said was involved, and three other classmates, Dino Ewing, Louisa Garry, and Dan Murphy, disputed Ramirez's account of events: "We were the people closest to Brett Kavanaugh during his first year at Yale.  He was a roommate to some of us, and we spent a great deal of time with him, including in the dorm where this incident allegedly took place.  Some of us were also friends with Debbie Ramirez during and after her time at Yale.  We can say with confidence that if the incident Debbie alleges ever occurred, we would have seen or heard about it – and we did not.  The behavior she describes would be completely out of character for Brett.  In addition, some of us knew Debbie long after Yale, and she never described this incident until Brett's Supreme Court nomination was pending.  Editors from the New Yorker contacted some of us because we are the people who would know the truth, and we told them that we never saw or heard about this."

The New York Times, no friend to Trump or Kavanaugh, could not corroborate Ramirez's story:

The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge.  Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

Have you no shame, senators?  Particularly shameful, and someone who deserves censure for sitting on the letter of the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, the full text of which is still being withheld, since July, is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who had Judge Kavanaugh sitting in front of her in a public hearing, in a private session, and talked with Kavanaugh on the phone and said nothing, not even to ask Kavanaugh when he stopped beating his wife.

This is not about the truth of these allegations.  This is about power, and the threat that President Trump will restore our courts to their originalist interpreting of the Constitution by appointing judges who believe that that sacred document should be interpreted by what those who wrote it meant in the context of their times.

Somewhere, Saul Alinsky, author of the progressive guidebook, Rules for Radicals, is smiling.  His goal was to destroy America's institutions through demonization of their occupants and the corruption of their functions.  Judge Kavanaugh must be destroyed, lest he and others like him prevent the progressives from using the courts to legislate what they can't get through Congress.  Judge Kavanaugh must be demonized in the Alinsky model.  If Donald Trump's election has done anything, it has exposed the depth and stench of the swamp, pulled back the curtain, and forced us to pay attention to the anarchists running the show behind it.

One remembers back when President Trump picked Kavanaugh from his list of 25 qualified nominees.  Kavanaugh's name apparently was not high on the radar of progressives, who had their prefabricated press releases and protest signs ready, with only a name to be filled in:

It was a wild night outside the Supreme Court Monday, as a [sic] leftist demonstrators, organized by NARAL, scrambled to find the most appropriate sign to protest President Donald Trump's nominee to replace outgoing Justice Anthony Kennedy[.] ...

Under the clear assumption that any nominee would be, by definition, an affront to their "human rights," demonstrators carried fill-in-the-blank signs and fistfuls of markers, so that they could make appropriate placards on the spot.

As soon as Brett Kavanaugh's name was officially announced, they set to work[.] ...

Some organizations flush with cash, like NARAL, came prepared with several different signs, one for each possible nominee.

Press releases were ready to denounce "fill in the blank's" participation in the "war on women" and assault on so-called abortion rights:

But no protest was more embarrassing than an email blast sent by the liberal group known as "Women's March."

Minutes after Trump announced his nominee, the group released a statement blasting Kavanaugh.  However, there was a major problem with the email copy: the opening line didn't cite Kavanaugh's name.  Instead, the first sentence had "XX" where Kavanaugh's name should have been, an obvious sign the email was pre-written and that the group planned to oppose the nominee regardless of who it was.

Unfortunately, missing Kavanaugh's name was not the only glaring mistake in the email.  In a subsequent paragraph, the organization misspelled Kavanaugh's name with a "C."

"Trump's announcement today is a death sentence for thousands of women in the United States.  Judge Brett Cavanaugh's nomination threatens to move our nation's highest court dangerously to the right and further erode protections for almost every marginalized group in America," the email read.

One wonders if other names on Trump's list of possible appointees have been used to look for other potential Democrat-linked character assassins with an ideological ax to grind that might be used to slander other nominees.  Even creepy porn lawyer and legal counsel to porn star Stormy Daniels Michael Avenatti has risen from his part of the swamp to slime Kavanaugh:

Stormy Daniels' lawyer Michael Avenatti claims he is now representing a woman with "credible information regarding Judge [Brett] Kavanaugh and Mark Judge." ...

"We will be demanding the opportunity to present testimony to the committee and will likewise be demanding that Judge and others be subpoenaed to testify," he tweeted Sunday night.  "The nomination must be withdrawn."

Of course it must.  That is the goal and purpose of this serial defamation.  And if Kavanaugh's nomination is withdrawn, the sexual McCarthyism of the left will continue, with the next target being "fill in the blank."  As I have previously noted, these charges are reminiscent of the campaign of smear and innuendo leveled at former GOP presidential candidate and successful black American conservative businessman Herman Cain.  Cain's candidacy derailed after repeated and unproven  sexual harassment allegations by former employees.  Like Harry Reid's tax lies about Mitt Romney, the strategy worked.

Liberal accusations against Republicans are accepted as credible immediately.  Smear first, prove later.  Guilty until proven innocent.  To various extents, it worked with Romney and Cain; why not Judge Brett Kavanaugh?

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investor's Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine, and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.