MATTHEWS: Democrats try boilerplate attacks on SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett, but they will backfire 

Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020 at the Capitol in Washington. (Graeme Jennings | Pool via AP)

After expressing condolences over the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, President Trump made clear he would nominate someone to replace her. Senate Republican leaders vowed that Trump’s nominee would receive a vote on the floor of the United States Senate. 

Democrats, of course, were outraged Trump would make a nomination so close to the presidential election. They alleged Republicans were flip-flopping on their position on the wisdom of a president putting forth a Supreme Court nominee in a presidential election year. 

Their boilerplate attacks commenced in short order. Even though Trump had also announced his nominee would be a woman, that didn’t stop Democrats from proclaiming that the next nominee — no matter who they were — was going to set women back decades. 

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden alleged that “women’s rights as it relates to everything from medical health care is going to be gone” if Trump and Republicans went forth with their plan. 

This was three days after Trump confirmed he was only considering women for the nomination. 

Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who currently serves on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was widely rumored to be Trump’s choice. 

But before Trump made it official Saturday and named her as his nominee, Democrats made a beeline for Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith after Newsweek claimed that a religious group she has ties to was the inspiration behind author Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Reuters followed Newsweek’s lead with a similar piece. 

The attacks on Judge Barrett’s womanhood and faith appear to have backfired, perhaps because it’s kind of hard to persuade middle-of-the-road people that a successful woman such as Barrett is itching to take away women’s rights. 

As it turns out, the claim was false, and Newsweek had to issue a major retraction. Reuters also made corrections. But that didn’t stop political commentators on the left and others in the mainstream press from continuing to make the false claim. 

That the left and some in the media have chosen to go down this path and insinuate that Amy Coney Barrett wants to take women back to the days when they were subservient to men is particularly astonishing when you consider that she is exactly the type of “everywoman” feminists have been telling women for decades that they can be. 

She’s an accomplished woman. She has a distinguished legal and judicial pedigree. She’s the mother of seven children, including two she and her husband adopted from Haiti. 

Her “crime” in the left’s eyes, however, is that she offers a “clear anti-abortion rights judicial record,” as CBS News put it. She doesn’t bow at the altar of a woman’s supposed “right” to terminate the life of her unborn child. For that, she’s considered a traitor to women in the eyes of Democrats and must be opposed, attacked, vilified every step of the way. 

So far, the attacks on Judge Barrett’s womanhood and faith appear to have backfired, perhaps because it’s kind of hard to persuade middle-of-the-road people that a successful woman such as Barrett is itching to take away women’s rights. 

This may be why Biden and other Democrats are now putting an emphasis on how Barrett will allegedly take Obamacare aware from the American people. 

But when we get to the confirmation hearings, Democrat senators’ attacks on her faith and her record on abortion will be center stage once again. 

Expect Republican senators to react incredulously (as they should) every time a Democrat senator accuses the well-qualified female nominee of being the one who will take women back to the dark ages. 

The chickens are getting ready to come home for Democrats as they will be hoisted by their own miserable “war on women” petards. It’s going be popcorn-worthy for sure. 

Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym Sister Toldjah and is a regular contributor to RedState and Legal Insurrection.