Tea at Trianon: Trump’s Kavanaugh Apology

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Trump’s Kavanaugh Apology

From The Federalist:

At Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony at the White House on Monday night, Trump delivered prepared remarks praising the man and apologizing for what he went through before being elevated.

“On behalf of our nation, I want to apologize to Brett and the entire Kavanaugh family for the terrible pain and suffering you have been forced to endure. Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception. What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency, and due process,” Trump said. He went on to correctly note that in “our country, a man or woman must always be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.” He turned to Kavanaugh’s young children and said, “Margaret and Liza, your father is a great man. He is a man of decency, character, kindness, and courage who has devoted his life to serving his fellow citizens. And now, from the bench of our nation’s highest court, your father will defend the eternal rights and freedoms of all Americans. You know that.”

Before former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy swore his former clerk in, Trump said it was “a beautiful moment which reminds us that freedom is a tradition passed down from generation to generation.” The comments bothered liberals inside and outside of the media. Vox’s Emily Stewart said Trump’s defense of Kavanaugh meant he was “going full conspiracy theorist” and that “Trump — who famously never says he’s sorry — on Monday’s White House event apologized to Kavanaugh ‘on behalf of our nation’ for the ‘terrible pain and suffering’ he was ‘forced to endure’ in the nomination process. As for those who opposed Kavanaugh’s nomination, and Ford, who accused him of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s, the president has no such sympathies.” (Read more.)