HORIST: Collins gave Kavanaugh a stunning endorsement

Larry Horist

8 years ago

If anyone doubts the prowess of Maine&rsquo&semi;s Republican Senator Susan Collins as a politician, they obviously did not see her speech on the floor of the Senate&period;&NewLine;She had announced that she would give her decision on the Kavanaugh confirmation vote in a three o&rsquo&semi;clock afternoon speech on the floor of the Senate&period;&nbsp&semi; (I mention in the &ldquo&semi;afternoon&rdquo&semi; because senators were orating all through the night under the 30-hour rule)&period;&NewLine;Most observers &ndash&semi; including this one &ndash&semi; expected brief remarks to explain her decision&period;&nbsp&semi;While she was non-committal at the time, it was expected that she would &ldquo&semi;reluctantly&rdquo&semi; vote in favor of confirmation&period;&nbsp&semi; What actually happened took almost everyone by surprise&period;&NewLine;To understand the importance and impact of her speech, we need to reflect on the situation she was facing&period;&nbsp&semi; She has long been one of those so-called &ldquo&semi;moderate&rdquo&semi; legislators &ndash&semi; willing to buck her party when she believed it was necessary&period;&nbsp&semi; She is part of the pro-abortion coalition in the Senate &ndash&semi; and does not share Kavanaugh&rsquo&semi;s pro-life beliefs&period;&nbsp&semi; In that, she has been a bit of a heroine to the women on the left&period;&NewLine;Collins is a woman who embraces the purposes of the &num;MeToo Movement &ndash&semi; although not one of those who declare that any accusation by a woman must be prosecuted in the absence of evidence&period;&NewLine;Collins&&num;8217&semi; time at the podium was after the only female Republican senator &ndash&semi; Alaska&rsquo&semi;s Lisa Murkowski &&num;8212&semi; had announced her decision to vote &ldquo&semi;no&rdquo&semi; on Kavanaugh&period;&nbsp&semi; That gave rise to some hope on the left that Collins would follow suit&period;&NewLine;Against all these seemingly insurmountable challenges, Collins took to the floor and for some 45 minutes gave a most impressive and detailed defense of the Kavanaugh appointment&period;&nbsp&semi; Her speech-ending official announcement that she would vote in favor of confirmation was a mere afterthought&period;&nbsp&semi; It did not take more than one minute into the speech to know how this movie was going to end&period;&NewLine;Seated behind Collins were two pro-Kavanaugh female senators &ndash&semi; Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi&period;&nbsp&semi; The staging was obvious, but effective&period; You had three powerful women on screen as Collins defended and praised Kavanaugh as the ideal person to sit on the Supreme Court&period;&nbsp&semi; The voices of women were being channeled and heard in a way not yet seen throughout the hearings&period;&nbsp&semi; To some extent, Collins took the sting out of the fact that there were no women on the Republican side of the Judiciary Committee&period;&NewLine;What Collins offered was a brilliant closing argument in a very controversial case&period;&nbsp&semi; She meticulously reviewed Kavanaugh&rsquo&semi;s judicial record and credibly explained her belief that Kavanaugh would not simply overrule Roe v&period; Wade because it was settled law based on precedence&period;&NewLine;Collins gave convincing examples of Kavanaugh&rsquo&semi;s support of women in court and in his own office&period;&nbsp&semi; Kavanaugh had an amazingly unblemished adult record attested to by numerous background investigations and hundreds of men and women &ndash&semi; Republican and Democrat &ndash&semi; who have told of his high moral character and fairness&period;&nbsp&semi; Collins echoed those sentiments&period;&NewLine;Collins was most effective as she took each of the charges and criticisms leveled against Kavanaugh and debunked them with fact and logic&period;&nbsp&semi; She did not claim to know what, if anything, had happened to Christine Blasey Ford, but rather stressed the utter lack of confirming evidence&period;&nbsp&semi; Collins reminded her audience of the importance of the supposition of innocence until proven guilty&period;&NewLine;As a constitutionalist, Collin argued that it would be wrong to set aside America&rsquo&semi;s Constitution, laws, judicial traditions and common sense fairness to achieve a political outcome &ndash&semi; in this case to not consent to the Kavanaugh appointment&period;&NewLine;Neither President Trump, Republican senators, nor all those other Kavanaugh supporters have presented a more detailed, more credible, more elegant or more convincing brief in support of Kavanaugh&period;&nbsp&semi; It may have enraged the closed-minded in the streets, but the speech gave a positive foundation for those other 51 senators supporting Kavanaugh &ndash&semi; and some comfort to those Americans who were not predisposed on the issue&period;&nbsp&semi; To some degree, Collins undermined the credibility of the barrage of Draconian complaints and predictions coming from Democrats and the far-left activist&period;&NewLine;No&period;&nbsp&semi; Her&rsquo&semi;s was not a timid or defensive explanation of a difficult vote&period;&nbsp&semi; Collins cleared the deck with a speech that will be long be remembered in the annals of legislative history&period;&NewLine;<a name="&lowbar;Hlk522535130"></a>Larry Horist is a conservative activist with an extensive background in economics, public policy and political issues&period; Clients of his consulting firm have included such conservative icons as Steve Forbes and Milton Friedman, and he has served as a consultant to the White House under Presidents Nixon and Reagan&period; He has testified as an expert witness before numerous legislative bodies, including the U&period; S&period; Congress and lectured at Harvard University, Northwestern University, Florida Atlantic University, Knox College and Hope College&period; An award-winning debater, his insightful and sometimes controversial commentaries appear frequently on the editorial pages of newspapers across the nation&period; He can be reached at <a href="mailto&colon;lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com">lph&commat;thomasandjoyce&period;com</a>&period;&NewLine;