Politics

‘Kavanaugh Sleaze Machine Is Back’: Conservatives Slam WaPo Story Calling Amy Coney Barrett A Handmaid

Drew Angerer/Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Mary Margaret Olohan Social Issues Reporter
Font Size:
  • Conservatives condemned a Tuesday Washington Post on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett.
  • The Washington Post story, titled “Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group People of Praise,” examines Barrett’s connections to the religious group and suggests that her association with People of Praise may be examined in her upcoming hearings.
  • “The Brett Kavanaugh sleaze machine is back,” said Judicial Crisis Networks’ Carrie Severino.

Conservatives condemned a Tuesday Washington Post story suggesting that Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett should be questioned during her confirmation hearings on her connections with a religious group.

“The Brett Kavanaugh sleaze machine is back,” said Judicial Crisis Network’s Carrie Severino in a Wednesday morning tweet, adding that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is “exactly right: The Democrats and their liberal allies think Judge Barrett is ‘too Christian’ or ‘the wrong kind of Christian’ to be a good judge. That is rank bigotry, and it has no place in our country.”

Severino referred to a Tuesday Washington Post story titled “Amy Coney Barrett served as a ‘handmaid’ in Christian group People of Praise.” The story examines Barrett’s connections to the religious group and suggests that her association with People of Praise may be examined in her upcoming hearings. (RELATED: ‘Nothing Nefarious’ — Ben Sasse Criticizes Story On Amy Coney Barrett’s Law School Housing)

“Barrett’s ties to the group, which has conservative stances on the role of women in society and other social issues, did not come to light until after she was questioned by senators considering her nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in 2017,” the Washington Post reported. “Senators are preparing to question her next week over her nomination to the high court.”

Media previously falsely linked People of Praise’s use of the word “handmaid” to the dystopian novel and show, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” before issuing corrections and retractions noting that there is no established link between People of Praise and novelist Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Conservatives pointed out that the Washington Post continues to attach negative meaning to the word “handmaid,” a biblical word that has been used in religious contexts to describe women for thousands of years.

“The word ‘handmaid’ appears dozens of times in the King James Bible,” McConnell said in a statement. “It was good enough for the Virgin Mary. But now, because one liberal author put it in the title of an anti-religious novel in the 1980s, the press tries to imply that one of the most brilliant and powerful women in the legal world is anti-woman.”


“It’s no coincidence that people who don’t like originalism are basing their understanding of the word ‘handmaid’ on a novel from the 1980s,” tweeted American Enterprise Institute Director of Academic Programs Christopher Scalia. (RELATED: These Are The Attacks Supreme Court Nominee Amy Coney Barrett Has Already Faced From Democrats)

“You know what’s the most ironic? The whole fake handmaiden trope suggests she is against women in leadership, when she is fighting to lead but the left has their foot on her neck trying to keep her down,” tweeted Concerned Women For America’s CEO and President Penny Nance.

The Washington Post story was written by reporter Emma Brown — a reporter who wrote about Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, as the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway pointed out.

“Democrats are laundering their (admittedly weak) anti-religious smear of Amy Coney Barrett through Emma Brown, the same reporter they used to launch their massive and media-coordinated anti-Kavanaugh operation that so many Americans found so despicable,” Hemingway tweeted.

Tea Party Patriot’s founder Jenny Beth Martin joined in Hemingway’s critique of Brown. “WashPost’s Emma Brown, who touched off character assassination of Brett Kavanaugh – as documented by @JCNSeverino and @MZHemingway in their bestseller, now attacking Amy Coney Barrett,” Martin tweeted. “Same failed playbook will bring same result.”

Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Catholic Vote condemned the story as well, saying: “This disgusting attack on Catholics could have been written in the 1830’s. The Washington Post is suggesting that Judge Barrett’s religious faith should be on trial during her confirmation. Democrats playing with fire.”

Media and Democratic attacks on the Supreme Court nominee have sparked a backlash with both conservatives and Republican lawmakers. Judicial Crisis Network has launched several ads in Barrett’s defense: “Stop The Bigotry,” an ad that calls for an end of attacks on Barrett’s faith, and “JFK,” wherein former President John F. Kennedy warns against anti-Catholic attacks.

WATCH:


A Morning Consult and Politico poll released Wednesday found that voters are increasingly backing the confirmation of Barrett:  almost half, 46%, of voters polled between Oct. 2 – 4 said that the Senate should confirm Barrett. These numbers were up 9 percentage points since Trump first announced he was nominating Barrett on Sept. 26, according to the poll.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel