Senator Mazie Hirono leaped out of obscurity onto the national stage with her startling injunction to "the men of this country" to "shut up and step up ... do the right thing ... for a change" and (presumably) believe the completely unsupported allegations of childhood groping by Judge Kavanaugh leveled by Christine Blasey Ford.  

Normally, in politics, it is bad idea to insult ("shut up") and impugn ("do the right thing ... for a change") half the electorate – particularly when one is standing for re-election.  But "Blue Hawaii" isn't just an Elvis movie, and Hirono's Republican opponent in November is Ron Curtis, who received not even a quarter of Republican votes in the crowded primary field.  Hirono is rated a likely solid victor by the Cook Political Report.  But there is a larger constituency than Hawaii's watching, and Hirono's slander of American males likely is not welcomed by Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, or other Senate Democrats running for re-election in red states.

Her public misandry was enough to get her on just one of the Sunday TV talk shows, CNN's State of the Union.  Instead of backtracking, she compounded the damage, implying that the reason she denies Kavanaugh the presumption of innocence is because she doesn't like his "ideological agenda."  Cameron Cawthorne of the Free Beacon was among the relatively few viewers of low-rated CNN yesterday morning, and he saw her keep digging in the face of actual probing questioning by host Jake Tapper:

Sen. Mazie Hirono (D., Hawaii) appeared on CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday, where she appeared to insinuate that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh does not get the presumption of innocence because of his "ideological agenda," citing his views on abortion. ...

Tapper said that four witnesses have denied knowledge of the sexual assault allegation waged against Kavanaugh before asking Hirono whether Kavanaugh should get the presumption of innocence as any other American.

"I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.  As I said, his credibility is already very questionable in my mind and in the minds of a lot of my fellow Judiciary Committee members, the Democrats," Hirono said.  "When I say that he is very outcome driven, he has an ideological agenda, very outcome driven[."] ... She went on to talk about abortion and how she believes that Kavanaugh is against women having the right to reproductive choice.

"This is a person who is going to be sitting on our Supreme Court making decisions that will impact women's reproductive choice.  He very much is against women's reproductive choice," Hirono said.

Hirono strayed from the Party Line that far more credible allegations of domestic violence against Keith Ellison – supported by evidence of police calls and medical treatment – should be ignored.  Kudos to Tapper for raising the issue and forcing a response.

Later in the interview, Tapper asked Hirono about the sexual assault allegations against Democratic National Committee co-chair Keith Ellison, prompting her to say that she makes "no excuses" for people who engage in this behavior.  She then said that there needs to be an investigation into the allegations against him before quickly pivoting back to the Kavanaugh allegation.  Ellison has denied the allegations.

Watch:

John Fund remembers when Hirono didn't tell men to shut up and believe accusers:

[Hirono] had the opportunity to choose sides in the 1990s when credible allegations were made that Daniel Inouye, then a Democratic senator representing Hawaii, had engaged in a pattern of sexual assault.

Lenore Kwock, the senator's hairdresser for 20 years, said she had been forced into nonconsensual sex back in 1975 and had suffered persistent gropings since then.

Kwock's story became public after she was tricked by a campaign worker for Inouye's 1992 Republican opponent into telling her story into a tape recorder.  The tape was briefly used in a political ad until Kwock demanded it be withdrawn.  Kwock told reporters she had "forgiven" Inouye, even as she stood by her story.  But she nonetheless spoke cautiously: "It could cost me my business, and so I speak with tact and diplomacy."

Nonetheless, Kwock was surprised at the silence of Hawaii's female political leaders about her account, given that the Anita Hill hearings had riveted the nation just one year earlier.  Mazie Hirono, then considered a protégé of Inouye's as a member of the State House, maintained a studied and consistent silence.  There is no evidence she believed Kwock.

I wonder if Hirono is hearing from the organized forces attacking the Kavanaugh nomination to shut up and stay out of the public eye.