What planet are Democrats from?

Dallas Morning News | Mark Davis:

“Robert Byrd can hang with lynch mobs in West Virginia in his past and get a free pass; but Sam Alito doesn't get a break for even the most tangential brush with the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, some of whose members might not have been the most enlightened souls in the Ivy League. I expected this kind of character assassination in the juvenile exercise that these hearings have become.”

Ed Cognoski responds:

Once again, Mark Davis invents sins to pin on his political opponents and then commits them himself. This time it's character assassination. It's getting the facts wrong (or lying, as Mr Davis says). It's mischaracterizing the argument of opponents in order to more easily dismiss it.

The character assassination begins with the title of Mr Davis' rant: What planet are Democrats from? It's a sign of a weak argument when you have to poison the well in an effort to discredit your opponents before the debate even begins.

The fact is that Senator Byrd does not get a free pass for his past membership in the Ku Klux Klan. Senator Byrd said of his youthful membership in the KKK, “I displayed very bad judgment, due to immaturity and a lack of seasoned reasoning. [It was] an extraordinarily foolish mistake.” His past is rightly condemned to this day. His repudiation of his past is what allows him to continue to serve in public life today.

Judge Alito's past, on the other hand, hasn't been repudiated, only forgotten. If his involvement in Concerned Alumni of Princeton was tangential, why was it on his resume when applying for a position in the Reagan administration? We either have unjustified padding (Mr Davis might call it lying if a Democrat had done it) on a resume from a professional lawyer in the 1980s or a convenient memory lapse from a Supreme Court nominee today. Either way, it's not the kind of behavior expected of a Supreme Court justice. That's the concern of the Democratic Senators, not whether Judge Alito made a mistake in his youth or not.

Mr Davis asserts that if Roe vs. Wade is overturned, there will be no federal ban on abortion. This is either profound deviousness or ignorance. Overturn Roe vs. Wade and Congress will rush to pass a federal ban on abortion. It will be the first order of business on the first day after the Court decision. Mr Davis knows it. His imagined scene of 50 state legislatures independently making local decisions is an attempt to lull an underinformed America. Intentionally misrepresenting the effects of Roe's reversal is unforgivable.

I've come to expect this kind of bashing of Democrats in the juvenile exercise that Mark Davis' columns have become. It's high time for Mr Davis to engage in reasoned debate himself.