Destructive evil committed for personal benefit.

From Why everyone should be angry at what Feinstein did re Kavanaugh, and why everyone is not by Neo. I have regarded Dianne Feinstein as one of the few Democrats who maintained any sort of connection to the great centrist tradition of America. But her most recent stunt in the Supreme Court confirmation process is such a disappointing departure from respectable norms, not over any principle, but simply for political posturing. Extremely disappointing.

Neo reflects some of my thoughts.

There are many things wrong with the accusation against Brett Kavanaugh that Diane Feinstein publicized recently. The vagueness of the charges, their antiquity, and the suspect timing, to name a few.

But the one I want to focus on now is the anonymity of the accuser,

There is a reason why one of the pillars of our legal system is that the accused—in a court of law—is given the right to face his or her accuser. This is true not just in sexual crimes but in others as well, and it’s even true when a child is the purported victim, although sometimes there are special ways in which children are protected from having to face their alleged perpetrators.

Anyone who bears legal witness against someone is identified and subject to cross-examination and the other tools in the lawyers’ kit. The purpose is not to be mean to victims, although the process can indeed be very stressful. The purpose is to protect the rights of the accused, which is considered (or used to be considered) one of the most important principles of American law.

[snip]

So why is Feinstein protecting the accuser’s identity?

Because PC practice now dictates it, as a mark of great sensitivity. That’s pernicious, because it elevates anonymous gossip to the status of news. Not only is the accused unable to confront the accuser, but the public is unable to evaluate a single thing connected with the incident. That leaves the space wide open for people to project whatever they wish onto the story, and for politics to rush in to fill the gap.

That’s Feinstein’s intent, of course. And everyone—right or left, man or woman, Democrat or Republican—should be calling her out for it. But of course they are not.

But this isn’t just a case of someone publicizing this story. This is the case of a United States senator of great seniority (in every sense of the word) using anonymous gossip as character assassination for political purposes.

Or trying to use it; we’ll see if it has any effect. So far it doesn’t seem to have derailed anything. But as I wrote yesterday, that’s probably not her intent. Her intent was to delay the hearings if possible (that doesn’t seem to be happening), or at the very least to taint Kavanaugh’s reputation forever and to rally Democrats to even greater fury for the 2018 elections.

But there’s even more behind it. It’s a warning to any future appointee of Trump’s, just as the Manafort and Cohen and Flynn prosecutions are warnings to anyone who might associate with him in business or government: beware!! It’s scorched earth, and we will use every method we can think of to destroy you.

This is the worst melding of the 1960s nostrum

The personal is political

and Mussolini's

All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

If you are in opposition to the establishment, facts don't matter. Anything that you have ever done under any circumstances as relayed by anyone, regardless of their motives, will be used to destroy you.

And if you haven't done anything, then the establishment will make things up. No accuser. No crime. No specificity. No evidence. Nothing except manufactured gossip. All in order to further a political agenda of defending establishment power. Not even a fig leaf of greater good or for the benefit of the commonweal. Simple, evil, destructive, vindictiveness.

Worst political class ever.