“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.”

That was John Maynard Keynes. He was writing back in the 1920s about economists. But you could say the same thing today. Instead of “defunct economist,” just plug in  “activist judge.” Anthony Kennedy wrote his delusional opinion in Casey v. Planned Parenthood in 1994. Most of us spotted it as sophomoric doubletalk. The kind of thing a college student whispers after a bong hit to a girl he wants to seduce.

How did a babbling nonetity like Kennedy end up as the swing vote on the highest court in the land?

His claim that American liberty amounts to inventing your own reality, when faced with the “mystery of being,” was obvious nonsense on stilts. But 26 years of it sitting on the lawbooks as the binding interpretation of our Constitution? Suddenly ordinary people take the claim seriously. It’s the silent subtext of most of our entertainment. The open message preached at our universities. And many souls are lost. Their minds duly addled, they drift away from biblical truth and the practice of faith.

This Is How You Get … Anthony Kennedy

It’s easy to forget how this happened, how a babbler like Kennedy ended up as the swing vote on the highest court in the land. It happened because Republicans didn’t know how to fight for Robert Bork — a palpable genius, whom the Democrats set out to destroy. As they’re now trying to savage Brett Kavanaugh.

But this time, we’re fighting back. Not nearly as well as we could. But at least we’re making an effort.

CNN called Kavanaugh’s interview on Fox News “unprecedented.” It wrote:

the joint appearance by the Kavanaughs was a startling moment, unprecedented in the history of the Supreme Court confirmation process, and may end up registering a new threshold in the politicization of the institution he hopes to join.

So where did this idea originate? Why did Kavanaugh take advantage of the Fox News bully pulpit to fight and save his potentially American-history changing appointment to the Supreme Court?

A Plan for Fighting Back

Perhaps we will never know for certain, but maybe the bold move was inspired by the writings of my friend Mark Smith. He’s vice president of the New York City chapter of the Federalist Society. (That’s the group that compiled most of the names on Donald Trump’s “short list” for SCOTUS.) Smith wrote about this very tactic in Disrobed. That’s his 2006 book explaining how conservatives could revolutionize the courts. In a good way.

Smith served as a media surrogate for the Donald Trump Presidential Campaign. He’s also an alum of the Trump Presidential Transition Team. Smith has advocated the use of the new media to help confirm conservative judges to the United States Supreme Court.

Take the Fight to the Media

I interviewed Smith. He said that he fully supports Judge Kavanaugh appearing on Fox News. The judge needed to defend his character and advocate for his own nomination. (That’s something Robert Bork declined to do.) Smith said: “President Reagan and President Trump taught us that directly speaking to the American public in your own words is often the most persuasive approach. It comes across as authentic and not scripted by some political pollster. By speaking on national television, Judge Kavanaugh is attempting to recreate the direct, personal relationship between the person on the television set and the viewer sitting at home. It is a smart move by Judge Kavanaugh. It personalizes him to the viewer in a way that a formal Senate hearing does not.”

Smith wrote Disrobed as a strategy handbook to Red State conservatives. The goal? To stop stuffing our courts with appointees who, once on the courts, evolve to the left. This list includes Republican-selected Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O’Connor, Earl Warren and William Brennan.

America’s courts, legal culture, and law schools remain solidly in the left’s camp. Decades of liberal legal precedents fill volumes of law tomes. Absent a sweeping change, liberals will ruthlessly exploit their dominant position in the law. That will let them continue advancing their radical agenda, as they have for the past seventy years.

A Battle Plan for Reclaiming the Law

Smith, a nationally recognized attorney, lays out an aggressive new battle plan to thwart the liberal assault on America by turning the courts into allies of the conservative movement. Smith implores conservatives: Toss out practically everything you think you know about courts, judges, and American law. Because it’s naive, anachronistic, and self-defeating.

Disrobed reveals:

• Why conservatives must immediately embrace — not decry — judicial activism.
• A bold new model for finding strong conservative judges — behold the “Judicial Reagan.”
• Why litmus tests, so often vilified, represent the only way to pick reliable conservative judges.
• How to get sitting judges to “evolve” (finally!) to the right.
• How the right can sue more to advance the conservative agenda — on guns, taxes, immigration, the right to life, you name it.
• How conservatives can turn liberals’ favorite court rulings against them.
• The hard truth that who wins in the courts often depends more on politics and ideology than on the rule of law.

Smith reminds us that courts, judges, and lawyers need not be enemies of the Right. They can even serve as valuable allies. But conservatives must force this change by taking swift action. The courts are far too important to be left to the devices of academics, lawyers, and politicians.

“Conservatives,” Smith writes, “must accept — and adapt our strategies to — the reality of the modern law. Even when the truth is uncomfortable. Otherwise the conservative political agenda and the American way of life will keep getting destroyed — legal case by legal case — in the courts.”