[Peace-discuss] long but really disturbing

[Debra Schrishuhn]

David Brock on NBC: “I used to know Brett Kavanaugh pretty well. And,
when I think of Brett now, in the midst of his hearings for a lifetime
appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, all I can think of is the old
"Aesop's Fables" adage: "A man is known by the company he keeps." And
that's why I want to tell any senator who cares about our democracy:
Vote no. Twenty years ago, when I was a conservative movement
stalwart, I got to know Brett Kavanaugh both professionally and
personally. Brett actually makes a cameo appearance in my memoir of my
time in the GOP, "Blinded By The Right." I describe him at a party
full of zealous young conservatives gathered to watch President Bill
Clinton's 1998 State of the Union address — just weeks after the story
of his affair with a White House intern had broken. When the TV camera
panned to Hillary Clinton, I saw Brett — at the time a key lieutenant
of Ken Starr, the independent counsel investigating various Clinton
scandals — mouth the word "bitch."

But there's a lot more to know about Kavanaugh than just his Pavlovian
response to Hillary's image. Brett and I were part of a close circle
of cold, cynical and ambitious hard-right operatives being groomed by
GOP elders for much bigger roles in politics, government and media.
And it’s those controversial associations that should give members of
the Senate and the American public serious pause.

Call it Kavanaugh's cabal: There was his colleague on the Starr
investigation, Alex Azar, now the Secretary of Health and Human
Services. Mark Paoletta is now chief counsel to Vice President Mike
Pence; House anti-Clinton gumshoe Barbara Comstock is now a Republican
member of Congress. Future Fox News personalities Laura Ingraham and
Tucker Carlson were there with Ann Coulter, now a best-selling author,
and internet provocateur Matt Drudge.

At one time or another, each of them partied at my Georgetown
townhouse amid much booze and a thick air of cigar smoke. In a rough
division of labor, Kavanaugh played the role of lawyer — one of the
sharp young minds recruited by the Federalist Society to infiltrate
the federal judiciary with true believers. Through that network,
Kavanaugh was mentored by D.C. Appeals Court Judge Laurence Silberman,
known among his colleagues for planting leaks in the press for
partisan advantage.

When, as I came to know, Kavanaugh took on the role of designated
leaker to the press of sensitive information from Starr's operation,
we all laughed that Larry had taught him well. (Of course, that sort
of political opportunism by a prosecutor is at best unethical, if not
illegal.)

Another compatriot was George Conway (now Kellyanne's husband), who
led a secretive group of right-wing lawyers — we called them "the
elves" — who worked behind the scenes directing the litigation team of
Paula Jones, who had sued Clinton for sexual harassment. I knew then
that information was flowing quietly from the Jones team via Conway to
Starr's office — and also that Conway's go-to man was none other than
Brett Kavanaugh.

That critical flow of inside information allowed Starr, in effect, to
set a perjury trap for Clinton, laying the foundation for a crazed
national political crisis and an unjust impeachment over a consensual
affair.

But the cabal's godfather was Ted Olson, the then-future solicitor
general for George W. Bush and now a sainted figure of the GOP
establishment (and of some liberals for his role in legalizing
same-sex marriage). Olson had a largely hidden role as a consigliere
to the "Arkansas Project" — a multi-million dollar dirt-digging
operation on the Clintons, funded by the eccentric right-wing
billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife and run through The American
Spectator magazine, where I worked at the time.

Both Ted and Brett had what one could only be called an unhealthy
obsession with the Clintons — especially Hillary. While Ted was
pushing through the Arkansas Project conspiracy theories claiming that
Clinton White House lawyer and Hillary friend Vincent Foster was
murdered (he committed suicide), Brett was costing taxpayers millions
by pedaling the same garbage at Starr's office.

A detailed analysis of Kavanaugh's own notes from the Starr
Investigation reveals he was cherry-picking random bits of information
from the Starr investigation — as well as the multiple previous
investigations — attempting vainly to legitimize wild right-wing
conspiracies. For years he chased down each one of them without regard
to the emotional cost to Foster’s family and friends, or even common
decency.

Kavanaugh was not a dispassionate finder of fact but rather an
engineer of a political smear campaign. And after decades of that, he
expects people to believe he's changed his stripes.

Like millions of Americans this week, I tuned into Kavanaugh's
hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee with great interest. In
his opening statement and subsequent testimony, Kavanaugh presented
himself as a "neutral and impartial arbiter" of the law. Judges, he
said, were not players but akin to umpires — objectively calling balls
and strikes. Again and again, he stressed his "independence" from
partisan political influences.

But I don't need to see any documents to tell you who Kavanaugh is —
because I've known him for years. And I'll leave it to all the lawyers
to parse Kavanaugh's views on everything from privacy rights to gun
rights.

But I can promise you that any pretense of simply being a fair arbiter
of the constitutionality of any policy regardless of politics is
simply a pretense. He made up his mind nearly a generation ago — and,
if he's confirmed, he'll have nearly two generations to impose it upon
the rest of us."