It becomes addictive, and they can’t seem to get enough of it.

Instantaneous Group Think

• Elizabeth Warren: “Like the man who appointed him, Kavanaugh should be impeached.”
• Kamala Harris: “He must be impeached.”
• Beto O’Rourke: “He should be impeached.”
• Julián Castro: “He should be impeached.”
• Bernie Sanders: “I support any appropriate constitutional mechanism to hold him accountable.”

Until now, impeachment has been a grave step in America’s political process, Daniel Henninger reminds readers in the WSJ.

In what now appears to be an editing fiasco of historic proportions (almost on a scale with the Washington Post’s epic and must-read correction of a recent piece about racism in the paper’s food section), the Times acknowledged that the woman involved in the purported Kavanuagh episode “declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident.”

From the Moral High Horse to the Money Grovel

But Democrats seem to live in a political world now whose standard of proof for judicial confirmations or any public- policy proposal is “whatever.” On Monday morning, well after the Times’s clarification of the original piece, the Harris campaign sent out an email grinding through “Brett Kavanaugh’s illegitimate nomination.” Then it asked for money: “Can you add a contribution of any amount to Kamala’s campaign?” The short distance from moral high horse to money grovel is breathtaking.

Still, something more serious than back-alley political cynicism is reflected in the statements from these Democratic presidential candidates. An issue raised by the entire Kavanaugh process is whether the Democratic Party as defined by its current generation of party activists is willing to conduct politics outside any conceivable definition of acceptable behavior.

Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed by a Senate vote nearly a year ago after a hearing process of unprecedented political bitterness.

This New York Times article and the piling on by five Democratic presidential candidates amount to a ritualistic stoning of Brett Kavanaugh. If the established system doesn’t go their way, they’ll conduct politics outside the system. Whatever it takes.

More from Mr. Henninger here.