Do it now

Back in 2005 I wrote a book called 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America. If I wrote an updated version today, Dianne Feinstein would make the list. She might even top it.

Just when you thought politics couldn't get any uglier, the senior senator from California proves you wrong.

Even the San Francisco Chronicle says what she did to Judge Brett Kavanaugh was "unfair." But "unfair" doesn't begin to describe how she disgraced herself.

By now you know the sordid details — that Senator Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, had received information in July or August from a woman who said that a drunken, 17-year old Brett Kavanaugh sexually molested her at a party when she was 15.

Ms. Feinstein sat on the information until right before the committee was to vote on Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, insuring maximum damage to the judge.

This is what a political ambush looks like.

The hyper-partisans on both sides know exactly what happened. They know he's a sexual predator – or that she's a liar. In fact, they know nothing, which isn't unusual for hyper-partisans on either side.

The fact is that unless we get an unexpected bombshell revelation, we can't know what happened that night 36 years ago. But the accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, even if she might be telling the truth, no longer deserves the benefit of the doubt.

First she was going to testify before the Judiciary Committee. Then she wasn't. Then she was again. But she would tell her story under oath only if she has her way.

One of the things she's demanding is that she gets the last word. She'll testify, she tells us through her lawyer, after the judge gives his side of the story. This is beyond absurd and violates everything we know about democratic procedures. First come the accusations – then the rebuttal. That's how it works in America.

And of all the lawyers Ms. Ford could have chosen to speak for her, she picks one who hates Donald Trump and has a history of Democratic activism.

Which isn't to say she's lying. The Wall Street Journal had a reasonable take on what may be going on. "The vagaries of memory are well known, all the more so when they emerge in the cauldron of a therapy session to rescue a marriage," the Journal said in an editorial. "Experts know that human beings can come to believe firmly over the years that something happened when it never did or is based on partial truth. Mistaken identity is also possible."

As for the judge, he's not waffling. He denies the allegations "categorically and unequivocally."

If there's a hearing with both sides testifying under oath, there's one thing we can count on: Democrats won't vote for Kavanaugh even if Ms. Ford says. I made the whole thing up.

One more thing: When progressives tell us that we must believe women when they make such charges, I wonder why it's such an automatic. As Alan Dershowitz, one of the few fair-minded liberals left in America, says: Do women have some gene that compels them to always tell the truth? And do men have a gene that compels them to lie?

Again, we don't know who's telling the truth, but Democrats would have more credibility if they weren't such hypocrites on the matter of sexual abuse allegations. Where were they when Paula Jones, a low level state employee in Arkansas, accused then Governor Bill Clinton of exposing himself in front of her in a Little Rock hotel room? Remember what James Carville, one of President Clinton's hit men, said about her: "If you drag a hundred dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."

And where were the feminists – and almost all of their allies in the liberal press, for that matter — when Juanita Broaddrick credibly accused then Arkansas Attorney General Bill Clinton of rape?

Looks like the only women who must be believed in the nasty world of politics (though not Hollywood or the news media) are Democratic women accusing Republican men.

I guess we have to tolerate a certain amount of hypocrisy in politics; it comes with the territory. But progressive sanctimony is a lot harder to take.

And this entire sanctimonious Democrat charade is about just one thing: Stopping Judge Kavanaugh before he's voted onto the Supreme Court. Republicans know this and they should vote on his nomination – the sooner the better.

JWR contributor Bernard Goldberg, the television news reporter and author of several bestselling books, among them, Bias, a New York Times number one bestseller about how the media distort the news. He is widely seen as one of the most original writers and thinkers in broadcast journalism. Mr. Goldberg covered stories all over the world for CBS News and has won 10 Emmy awards for excellence in journalism. He now reports for the widely acclaimed HBO broadcast Real Sports.

He is a graduate of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey and a member of the school's Hall of Distinguished Alumni and proprietor of BernardGoldberg.com.