“A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches,” said wise King Solomon.  In the fall of 2018, Democrats pressed with all their might to take Brett Kavanaugh’s good name away, in an effort to retake control of Congress.  This was, to say the least, unjust, as the nominee himself—by all reasonable accounts a good man—said tearfully during his confirmation “hearing,” a farcical witch trial that would’ve made Cotton Mather blush.

This does not go without saying, so therefore it must be said: Conservatives should not be shocked by the behavior of Democrats and their water-carrying media.  In every way imaginable, the left has begged us to believe that they are the sort of diabolical creatures that will Bork the hell out of any perceived threat to Roe v. Wade.

Yet I wonder: Are we even capable of realizing that those who think nothing of destroying a man’s reputation in order to preserve legal infanticide and win midterm elections simply cannot be trusted, and that their breathless and completely unfounded allegations ought to be treated with scorn?

Also: Do we truly believe that the media are liberal, and that Hollywood has no moral compass?

We actually marvelled at the fact that in the year 2018 a film such as Chappaquid dick could be made and shown: a film which dared to portray as ambiguous Ted Kennedy’s complicity in the violent death of Mary Jo Kopechne—as opposed to, say, showing him wrestling an alligator in the cold waters of Poucha Pond on behalf of the girl trapped in the car.  This non-hagiographic script was so controversial that not one American actor in all of Hollywood could be found willing to risk his career by playing Ambiguous Edward; Australia had to be consulted.

Those too young to remember should watch on YouTube the “Lion” of the Senate’s speech that is affectionately dubbed “Robert Bork’s America,” delivered 14 years after Roe was divined from the infernal gods of the Sexual Revolution, and 18 years after the “Chappaquiddick incident.”

Then again, perhaps conservatives old enough to remember the Bork hearings should watch that speech again—every day, until they admit what they are dealing with.

Need we discuss “Long Dong Silver” and the EEOC Coke can?  Perhaps we do: A sneering Sen. Kamala Harris asked Kavanaugh whether he believed Anita Hill.

Thus we come to what is truly shocking: the naivete and incredulity of conservatives.  Clarence Thomas seethed manfully when summarizing his treatment as an “uppity black person” before Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee.  Twenty-seven years later, Kavanaugh could at times barely contain his tears, and his statements of outrage at being labelled the former head of a teenage criminal sex-trafficking ring were mild, considering.

Yet, of course a unified media portrayed him as unhinged and partisan for daring to display testicular fortitude, as if they were all reading from a script written by Ma zie Hirono.  And of course Kavanaugh felt compelled to walk back his mild anger in a Wall Street Journal editorial.

My fears that Kavanaugh would not have the courage to vote to overturn Roe did not come on the eve of the final confirmation vote when Susan Collins prattled on about Kavanaugh’s professed respect for Griswold v. Connecticut, which laid the rails for Roe.  My fears came with Kavanaugh’s tears.

Kavanaugh typifies the George W. Bush era “compassionate conservative”—a creature that ought to be extinct by now in the Age of Trump, owing to its inability to adapt to the environment.  Yet the breed is still hanging on, making faint chirps in the night about bipartisanship and the halcyon days of statesmanlike compromise in the hallowed halls of the world’s greatest deliberative body.  Yes, in that very building Sen. Charles Sumner impugned the name of Sen. Andrew Butler, likening Butler’s defense of slavery to a perverse affection for an ugly whore; and in response Butler’s cousin, Rep. Preston Brooks, took to the floor of the Senate and beat Sumner within an inch of his life with his cane.

Compassionate conservatives long for favorable media attention, and they think they’ll get it if they speak endlessly about their efforts to promote equality.  Yet their lips quiver whenever the media don’t buy it and paint them instead as horrible monsters.  There the GOP senators sat, terrified of being absurdly called promoters of “rape culture”—a charge that was inevitable and inevitably came—instead of asking tough questions of Christine Blasey Ford to her face.  After her testimony, they bent over backward to agree with Democrats that Ford’s utterly unverifiable and remarkably convenient accusations against Brett Kava naugh “needed to be heard,” and that she was “courageous” for trying to ruin a man’s name after flying on an airplane.

For the new “conservative majority” on the Court to matter in the long run, Republicans are going to have to press forward in the face of lying Democrats and work to pass legislation that challenges and potentially reverses the effects of Obergefell and Roe.  They need to follow Trump’s example and relish every media attack, knowing that, no matter what they do, on TV and in the papers their names will be mud.