The New McCarthyism

When the wife of Judge Alito left the hearing room in tears on Wednesday, a bomb went off which will be wounding Dems for a long, long time. On Thursday, when the Dems had a chance to lesson some of the damage with heartfelt apologies, they just couldn't bring themselves to do it, and the lefty blogs have been unbelievably callous toward Mrs. Alito. All of this is being reported across the blogosphere, and none of it will play well with middle America. I refuse to link to any of those idiots, but if you search a bit, you'll find them.

Thomas Lifson writes about the effect of this new McCarthyism on the Dem party:

Most Americans were not glued to their televisions yesterday watching the Alito confirmation hearings. But today a substantial portion of the electorate is aware that Judge Alito’s wife Martha-Ann Bomgardner was driven to tears, as Senator Lindsey Graham apologized to the nominee and his family for the hectoring and smearing he and they had endured.

It was one of those moments which encapsulate a complex drama, speaking to common (and noble) human emotions. Anyone who has ever stoically attempted to control the deep pain of seeing a loved one suffering or under stress knows that the merest expression of sympathy is enough to burst the dam, and let the cathartic rears flow.

All of us who love, who have watched our loved ones under duress, and who have received support understand Martha-Ann Bomgardner, even if the subtleties of the theory of the unitary executive and stare decisis elude us.

The network news honchos, for all their liberal bias, know that “If it bleeds it leads,” and in this case, “If it cries, it flies.”

The Judiciary Committee Democrats have disgraced themselves.

Lifson then goes on to recount the McCarthy hearings and the disgrace that they brought on the Republican Party for decades. He then adds this:

It took the GOP decades to recover from the damage inflicted by the lasting imagery of McCarthy the bully. Anti-communism, fairly or not, became stigmatized for a generation.

It was anti-racism fanaticism, the attempt to tar Judge Alito as a bigot, which was at the root of yesterday’s drama. If anything, the average American today has more personal experience of being impugned as a racist than the 1950s American had of being impugned as a communist. Voters have far more to identify with in Alito than they ever did in the McCarthy hearings.

The only question now is how long it will take the Democrats to understand the disaster they have created for themselves.

The American people don't care much for bullies, and what they saw all week was a collection of Dem bullies who tried to assassinate the character of a good man. They won't quickly forget the injustice that was done to Judge Alito, and the emotional damage that resulted.

The final insult - after savaging Alito for three days, when a panel of federal judges began to testify in favor of Judge Alito, the Dems fled. Hugh Hewitt put it this way:

As distinguished jurist after distinguished jurist testified on behalf of Judge Alito, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee first visibly buckled, their faces' falling, and then simply fled. Perhaps it was Judge Aldisert's resume --a campaign worker for Jack Kennedy in West Virginia, an LBJ appointee supported by Bobby Kennedy when RFK was senator from New York-- that prompted Teddy to flee, or the patient, sincere, steady rumble of a barely concealed outrage from across the long panel of judges at the treatment their obviously deeply respected colleague had received at the hands of the Senate Democrats that routed Schumer, Durbin and even Leahy. But whatever the reason, all that blather about judicial independence and ethics melted away in the rain of approval from Judge Alito's robed colleagues.

Perhaps we should now stop calling it McCarthyism, and start calling it Kennedyism, Bidenism, Leahyism, Durbinism, or Schumerism. Or maybe Democratism. Take your choice.