The famed line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” came to mind recently during the Kavanaugh nomination circus.
It is spoken by Queen Gertrude in response to Hamlet’s staging of a play to gauge her guilt in the murder of his father. When Hamlet asks Gertrude what she thinks of the Player Queen’s protestations of marital fidelity, Gertrude utters the indelible line to indicate her cynicism about the character’s sincerity.
Broadly speaking, the line refers to anyone who seems insincere, but Wikipedia also had this interesting description: “it is commonly used to imply that someone who denies something very strongly is hiding the truth.”
I imagine that many foes of Brett Kavanaugh believe this sentiment applies to him well given his highly emotional denial of charges of sexual abuse.
On the other hand, supporters of Kavanaugh may characterize the various Democratic senators and operatives as being guilty of this charge, given their vociferous attacks on Kavanaugh’s judicial and personal credibility from the outset.
But here’s my take on it. Kavanaugh’s moral outrage was based on his being personally attacked and accused of something so heinous that the very accusation is enough to tarnish if not ruin his reputation permanently. Methinks all of us would react in such a way if charged with such a thing.
But the Democrats were not being charged with anything. Their outrage was offensive in orientation and full of so much righteous zeal that one wondered why they were protesting too much?
Is it because they really thought Kavanaugh, a man with as distinguished a record of public service as anyone, was truly unqualified? Doubt it.
Was it because they didn’t like some of his judgments? Yes. And that’s fair game, though a crucial difference between Democrats and Republicans is that the vast majority of Republican senators approved Obama’s and Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees even though they disagreed with their legal philosophy.
However, I believe that the vitriol and passion of the Democrats’ lust to destroy Kavanaugh comes instead from a different source, from their lust to preserve and defend abortion no matter what, by any means necessary.
And that passion comes from a deep-seated understanding that at the end of the day, they are defending and even promoting the killing of unborn children, which is the most heinous of all crimes against humanity.
But they are loath to admit such a monstrous motivation and so disguise their dark intentions with illogical and disingenuous claims of protecting “women’s health,” as if killing a child in the womb was something good for a woman’s health, not to mention the health of the pre-born women and men who suffer that grievous fate.
They did not “protest too much” when Gorsich was nominated because he was simply replacing a Scalia, a conservative for a conservative. But they know that Kavanaugh, who is not a staunch judicial opponent of abortion, is replacing Kennedy, who came to be a swing vote on the court and so they fear he MAY do the unthinkable and rule Roe v. Wade was bad law, which it is.
And so the protests have indeed gotten to be too much. If truth and decency is on your side, you should not have so much to fear. But methinks that those who make a career and a mission out of protecting abortion do not enjoy that particular benefit.
Trey Hoffman
Peachtree City, Ga.
STF is correct that the actions to block Justice Kavanaugh were a consequence of the treatment of Judge Garland.
Such is politics.
However, should Roe be reversed, all that will happen is to return these issues to the States or to the People; such was the original intent of the Framers of our Constitution.
The heartfelt and contentious views surrounding women’s health are too important and personal to be placed in the hands of a remote, distant and highly political Federal Government
Dave – I recognize your concerns for a distant federal government to control local issues, but I am torn. Georgia has a history of blatant codified discrimination. Without Brown (1954) or Loving (1967) basic rights for minorities would have been denied for decades.
Worst, if Roe is overturned, Georgia will immediately outlaw abortion to satisfy the white evangelicals (who have enough money to travel to more liberal states to have their own abortions just as they did before 1973). However, the poor women who cannot afford this travel will be saddled with children they cannot afford. The same sanctimonious evangelicals who will gladly outlaw abortion will then further shred every thread of the social safety net and ensure that these poor children struggle for food, medical care, housing, etc. The only real difference between the two camps is that the anti-abortion proponents prefer to torture and kill children slowly.
Perhaps Mr. Hoffman failed to see the news for the last 3 years. The Democrats strongly opposed Judge Kavanaugh (many times with silly and childish antics) because Merrick Garland was never even allowed to face this committee. There are consequences for undermining the U.S. Constitution, and the Republicans will be reminded of this for decades.
Also, I strongly support Roe and hope it is never overturned. Returning women to barefoot and pregnant subservient status to be controlled by men would be a major setback for our Republic.