During the Kavanaugh debate we’ve heard a lot of hyperbole from both sides. The Dems are trying to portray Kavanaugh, who as of this Thursday evening I think will be confirmed 51-49, as a hair-trigger bully and gang rapist. As usual on almost every issue, they have at best a drooling tenuous grip on reality and should not be considered human adults at all. Probably some sort of teenage reptile, one of the dumber species of such. How’s that for hyperbole?
Some Republicans get the Kavanaugh thing right but go out on a neurotic limb when they start to speculate on the larger issues. Yes, this has been a well-coordinated hit-job by the hard Left. Yes, Soros funds some of it. Yes, the Dems lie, cheat, and manipulate to get what they want, not letting facts or any semblance of a commitment to democracy stand in their way. But no, it is not part of a global conspiracy to install a new world order run by the “deep state,” the UN, and the Atomic Mole People.
Truth be told —a rare thing in this town— all this has been done before. Time after time since man first crawled out of the ooze, factions use any trick in the book, dirty or legit, to get what they want. We held up Garland for a year. Merrick, not Judy. Smart move, but totally unscrupulous.
The vanity of thinking that things are so important now we’re living in some special epoch ignores history. A trait predominant in mankind and particularly prevalent amongst Americans.
Factions rise and die. Civil wars come and go. Today’s imperator is tomorrow’s cable television host. And yes, it’s run by faceless bureaucrats that used to be called the establishment and now are referred to as the deep state. A strange trend amongst a certain type of conservative is to think the deep state is a recent phenomenon borne of squish Republicans or leftist opposition to the Trump administration. Nope. Been around forever.
Greek slaves who ran Roman imperial courts? As in courtier, not as in law. Deep state. The curia of the Roman Catholic Church? Deep state. Mandarins of the British civil service as perfectly portrayed by Sir Nigel Hawthorne in Yes, Minister? Deep state.
Though, one must admit, given the FBI’s recent ignominy, the excellent portrayal of agent Joe Pistone in Donnie Brasco? Depp state.
And at least here in DC, it’s not that covert or mysterious. Actually, any twit willing to plight his or her pledge to the political class can join right up. As Robert Hutchins is said to have opined, “You will never have to buy another cocktail for yourself or spend your own money to purchase another dinner at a Capitol Hill restaurant. Also, no one will ever tell you the truth again. If you like that you’ll love Washington.”
It was the same when I got to the nation’s capitol in 1987, fresh out of Europe and the Army. I spent weeks fruitlessly looking for a congressional staff position, having no solid contacts there but naively thinking my knowledge and Army Intel experience would find me something. Eventually, a friend from Florida and Reagan administration official named Artie Teele took me to lunch. At the Old Ebbitt Grill (was there with my daughter yesterday. Still superb. Try the Oysters Rockefeller) he related to me a DC law that still is, and forever will be, in effect: “David, in this town, no matter who wins. The home team always wins.”
Artie, a first-rate man, came to a tragic end, hounded by the press over a scandal he was later completely exonerated on. But by then, Artie had had enough. That brutal lesson rings true in the Kavanaugh Affair. This is a town where the higher you climb the bigger price you better be willing to pay. As Ray Donovan, Reagan’s first secretary of labor, said after being cleared of baseless corruption charges, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”
Of course, there has been one glaring exception to the aforementioned law: Donald Trump.
After paying no real dues, not elected to a thing before this, creaming his establishment GOP opponents in the primaries, and trouncing the poster girl of the political class, Trump is definitely not on the home team. That’s where the virulent hatred stems from. It’s not over ideology. Grow up, kids. It’s over turf. Always has been, always will be. Trump beat the home team and then rubs it in their slack-jawed faces. He refutes the basis of the rules the deep state/establishment have dedicated their whole lives to: Play along to get along.
It’s the same story with the Kavanaugh thing. Sure, it looks to the uninitiated like only the Left vs. Right. And it is, but to a small degree. It is just a power grab, pure and simple. The GOP is about to sew up the court and the Dems want to stop them by any means necessary. It’s a stiletto fight in a dark alley more motivated by naked material and power avarice than it is by law, feminism, or Brett Kavanaugh one way or another. Democrat pearl-clutching notwithstanding.
It’s sad because the establishment used to be the adult guys who kept us safe from the loonies on both sides, a sort of eternal Eisenhower administration. But since the 60s it has morphed into a reliable redoubt of the Left because government in general has swung left in the kind of people it attracts. That’s because it has become the career of choice of failed liberal arts majors and chuffed up middle-class intellectuals. Conservatives, more attracted to fields that require talent, hard work, and brains tend to focus on the private sector.
So, win or lose on Kavanaugh, don’t take it as a victory or loss for any real ideals or principles. For most of the people in this fight gave up on those a long time ago. Take it as a tactical and strategic loss that, at least for the Right, need not have happened if we hadn’t caved to Dem demands almost from the very git-go.
If we win? Well, basically, we got lucky. And sometimes here on the banks of the Potomac, that’s the best you can get.
