Ford-Kavanaugh Hearings Reinforce Previous Conceptions

An ugly day for the United States Senate and the United States of America.

Yesterday morning, I believed Senate hearings including testimony only from Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh would leave little settled. It seemed obvious that an impartial investigation was needed before any public hearings and that we needed to also hear from Mark Judge as well as the two other named accusers of Kavanaugh. Barring that, the hearings would be a farce and a party-line vote on Friday would be a disaster for all concerned.

The hearings did nothing to dispel any of that. Indeed, they were even more of a farce than I feared. Republican Senators set up the rules of the circus and Democrats were rightly angry about it. Both seemed more interested in preening before the voters than in getting to the truth.

Then again, my longstanding view was that hearing Ford reiterate her on-the-record charges and Kavanaugh reiterate his on-the-record denials would get us nowhere. Judging by my Twitter feed and my own reaction, that remained the case.

My Must-Read list, which is heavy on national security professionals and certainly leans Democratic, mostly loved Ford, with many praising her as a hero. But that was their starting position. Because she was on during the busiest part of my work day, I only caught parts of her testimony live but thought she acquitted herself well. This was the first time I’d heard her voice or seen her at all other than the two photographs that had been circulating for weeks but she was pretty much what I expected. She came across as a polished professional psychologist who has spent her whole life dealing with a sexual trauma and studying its effects. She was, as someone on my Twitter feed noted, both a victim and an expert witness. But, again, I went into it thinking that she’d been the victim of sexual assault.

I was able to watch most of the first two hours or so of Kavanaugh’s testimony live and this, too, was the first time I’d seen him on television, having previously consumed all of my information about him through reading. He came across as something of an entitled jackass, which confirmed my pre-existing expectations. His incredibly emotional opening statement, during which he seemed on the verge of tears most of the time, was uncomfortable. It’s not how I or most men I know would have comported ourselves in a similar situation. But he projected himself as someone genuinely outraged to be accused of a heinous crime that he didn’t commit.

As I noted during my live Twitter reaction, “So here’s Brett Kavanaugh’s dilemma. If he’s innocent, [he’s] right to be outraged and self-righteous about the indignity of being accused of such heinous crimes. But, despite his expressed sympathy for Ford, he’s calling her memory of worst moment a lie.”

Nothing in his statement or responses to the first two rounds of questions (all that I heard) changed my mind. I still don’t think he’s a rapist, let alone somebody who routinely attended gang rape parties. But he was certainly an entitled bro who drank a lot and, quite probably, acted badly toward girls. Then again, that’s what I thought at the outset.

While I didn’t see the video, what I’ve read of the Fox News interview he did a couple days before the hearings made me uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s appropriate for Supreme Court nominees to be lobbying the Republican base for support. And I think he went too far in trying to burnish his high school reputation. While he didn’t go so far as to portray himself as a “choir boy,” the meme many on the left were pushing, he almost certainly underplayed how much he drank in school and overplayed how well he treated the girls.

He doubled down on this during the hearings. He took a page from Clarence Thomas’ playbook and railed at the injustice of the proceedings and the indignity of having his reputation dragged through the mud based on uncorroborated charges. I was okay with that. I was, however, uncomfortable with the partisanship he displayed. I’m fully cognizant that the reality of the proceeding is that he’s unlikely to get any Democratic votes and that he therefore needed to rally the Republican caucus. But the way he did it further taints his ability to do the job for which he’s lobbying.

He was pugnacious towards some of his Democratic interlocutors and, in some cases, notably the exchange with Sheldon Whitehouse, I found it effective and even a bit amusing. Some of the questions were in fact condescending and lacking in probative value. But I think it backfired when he used the same tactics with female Senators. The optics of that are always bad, like it or not, and that’s especially the case when the question at hand is his treatment of women. But being an entitled jackass doesn’t make you a rapist.

Further, while I believed him when he denied the accusations at hand—both Ford’s and those of the other named accusers—he strained credulity in his constant underplaying of his drinking (“I liked beer”) and, especially, his attempt to spin some embarrassing things in his yearbook as other than what they clearly were. I frankly don’t care that, as immature teenagers at an all-boys school, he at his friend judge exchanged “Have you boofed yet?” quips. But it simply makes no sense that it was a fart joke. And the notion that a bunch of the bros put “Renate Alumnus” on their pages as a way to honor some girl at another school who they greatly admired is simply not credible.

Unlike many, I’m actually prepared to believe his Fox News interview assertion that he was a virgin in high school and well after, especially in the Catholic (and Bill Clintonian) sense. I find it perfectly plausible that he let on to his high school bros and people he knew in college that he was a player while at the same time remaining a technical virgin. Furthermore, I don’t care one way or the other.

My strong preference would have been for Kavanaugh to simply admit that, well into his college days, he routinely drank way too much. That, no, he never blacked out such that he would forget having attempted to rape someone but that, sure, he was a drunken jackass on way too many occasions. And that, while he was actually nice to young Renate in person, he went along with peer pressure and pretended that he’d had sex with her and putting that slogan on his yearbook page. None of that would disqualify him from the Supreme Court. I’m not sure that his lying about it, for what I think are perfectly understandable reasons—he may well be genuinely ashamed of the “Alumnus” thing and not want to go on national television and say that she had a reputation as an easy lay in high school—does, either. While I take perjury seriously, let alone for judges, this isn’t a material matter and a tawdry thing, indeed, for public airing.* But it’s certainly not a good look, either.

At the same time, I couldn’t in good conscience vote for him at this point. Certainly, not without the investigation the Democrats are quite reasonably demanding. Not without hearing from Mark Judge.

And maybe not at all.

The problem at this point is that, while I don’t believe we have enough evidence to think that he’s a rapist or even serial harasser, too many women do. Absent some sort of definitive proof that Ford made up the story out of whole cloth—which I don’t think happened and would be impossible to prove, anyway—there’s simply no way for him to clear his name. Women believe his accuser because most of them have been repeatedly harrassed and, in many cases, assaulted themselves. And, fairly or not, they see those men in Kavanaugh.

Like it or not—and I don’t—the fact of the matter is that a huge number of women will take Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a sign that the country, and certainly the Republican Party, don’t value their experiences or think sexual assault is disqualifying. Intellectually, that strikes me as a non sequitur. But this is an incredibly emotional issue. And, to the extent that Kavanaugh becomes the deciding vote to overturn Roe or otherwise rules on issues that pertain to women, not only will the legitimacy of those rulings will be tainted but the image of Kavanaugh maniacally laughing while assaulting 15-year-old Christine Blasey will come to mind.

If Kavanaugh is innocent of the most serious charges against him, as I still believe, that’s a grave injustice. But it seems baked in at this point.

Update (Doug Mataconis): I’ve posted my own summary of, and impressions from, yesterday’s hearing. By and large, I am left in the same position as James at the end of this mess.

______________
*Yes, I’m aware of the irony that Kavanaugh wanted all manner of tawdry details when he was working for Ken Starr. But I think an investigation for actions taken as a 49-year-old President in the Oval Office is a different matter than teenage yearbook bragadoccio.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. drj says:

    Like it or not—and I don’t—the fact of the matter is that a huge number of women will take Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a sign that the country, and certainly the Republican Party, don’t value their experiences or think sexual assault is disqualifying.

    And they are absolutely right.

    Intellectually, that strikes me as a non sequitur.

    Huh?

    Several women have credibly accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. The GOP refuses to investigate. They simply don’t want to know.

    From which follows that – as long as there is some plausible deniability – they are OK (regardless of whether Kavanaugh is actually guilty or not) with having a rapist on the Supreme Court.*

    In my book, that’s exactly what “not valuing women’s experiences or thinking sexual assault is disqualifying” means.

    * To be scrupulously fair, they are also OK with the possibility of having a rapist/Russian asset in the White House. If nothing else, they get some points for consistency at least.

    16
  2. James Joyner says:

    @TM01:

    You leftists have tried to destroy him and his family. Of course he’s angry, and angry at only a certain subset of people.

    How many of Bill Clinton’s presidential actions do you consider tainted? Ted Kennedy’s actions? Are Corey Booker’s actions all tainted as well?

    Dude, I’m not a leftist. I voted for every Republican nominee from 1984 to 2012. I supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton and still do. But, unlike Clinton and Kennedy, Kavanaugh isn’t running for elected office but a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. That institution depends entirely on its reputation for being non-partisan and fair.

    If you’d bother to think about it and take off your Never Trump blinders, I suspect you’d say that unfounded, last minute, unverifiable accusations are not The Norm that you wish to establish.

    That’s been my position with Kavanaugh throughout. I still think he’s innocent of the charges. The problem is that most women in this country believe Ford. Given that only two SCOTUS nominees in my lifetime have been accused of sexual assault, I think the odds are high that Trump can find another conservative judge that won’t be accused of sexual assault.

    @drj:

    Several women have credibly accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. The GOP refuses to investigate. They simply don’t want to know.

    I think most Republican Senators think the charges are BS and want to get the nightmare over with. I don’t think there’s enough evidence to deny Kavanaugh a promotion. I just think that too many people disagree to give it to him.

    7
  3. drj says:

    I think most Republican Senators think the charges are BS

    Oh no, they don’t. They fear these charges are true (which would not be a big deal to them if these had remained hidden).

    If you sincerely feel you have the truth on your side, you go for the independent investigation.

    It’s not exactly like the Kavanaugh mess has been Benghazi’d/Vince Fostered to death yet.

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  4. Mark Ivey says:

    But a blackout drunk with gambling debts? No problem! As long as he protects the President from the special prosecutor AND votes against baby killing. Salah……………………….

    12
  5. Kari Q says:

    @James Joyner:

    They don’t care enough to make sure the charges are false. They could have had the FBI investigate, declared the evidence to verify the allegations (assuming that was the outcome of the investigation), then proceeded with the vote. They never even considered it.

    The only conclusion I can come to is the Republicans in the Senate do not care if Kavanaugh attempted to rape Dr. Ford. They regard it as too trivial to investigate. Otherwise, they would bloody well investigate.

    17
  6. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @James Joyner:

    I think most Republican Senators think the charges are BS and want to get the nightmare over with.

    Pretty sure they don’t think it’s BS in the sense it’s a lie, they just think it’s BS that a privileged white man should have to answer for things he did 35 years ago, because Dawg only knows what they might have to answer for. As for getting the nightmare over with, they sure have a funny way of going about it, doing everything they can to prolong the nightmare past 2020.

    I don’t think there’s enough evidence to deny Kavanaugh a promotion.

    Kinda hard to get evidence without an investigation, don’t ya think?

    11
  7. James Joyner says:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Kinda hard to get evidence without an investigation, don’t ya think?

    Yes, and I’ve called for it. But I don’t think we’re going to find anything the corroborates Ford or exculpates Kavanaugh, which will leave us right back where we started.

    2
  8. Michael Reynolds says:

    Kavanaugh’s outrage was quite real. He’s outraged that he’s being challenged, after all, this was just youthful hijinks, and he was drunk, and all the kids were doing it, so how dare anyone attack him now, so many years later?

    But he’s lying. At a guess he’s still a secret drunk, and a mean one. He is obviously unfit to be on the court, he’s nothing but a partisan hack.

    But the deal is sealed: Lindsey Graham in for Jeff Sessions, Kavanaugh in for Justice Kennedy of the Deutsche bank son, and they will work together to destroy the Mueller investigation and leave a traitor in the White House. Everything Trump Touches Dies, and he’s touched the Supreme Court.

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  9. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @James Joyner:

    But I don’t think we’re going to find anything the corroborates Ford or exculpates Kavanaugh, which will leave us right back where we started.

    Well, you’re half right anyway, James. It is doubtful we will find anything like a smoking gun that proves or disproves this specific allegation. But it seems all too obvious that an investigation will turn up a lot of stuff Republican Senators are loath to see the light of day.

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  10. Scott says:

    @Michael Reynolds: When Kavanaugh was going off on his primal scream (demonstrating in my mind his fundamentals unfitness for the job) he reminded me of Mayella Ewell in the courtroom scene from To Kill a Mockingbird

    9
  11. Gustopher says:

    But being an entitled jackass doesn’t make you a rapist.

    I’m not sure we need an entitled jackass on the Supreme Court, rapist or not. I’m in favor of having more people from different backgrounds on the court, but I think we can skip that one.

    The fact that he lied about his yearbook — brazenly lied — is disqualifying. The yearbook doesn’t matter in itself, and if he said “ugh. 17 year olds trying to be cool and lying to make themselves out to be more than they were”, I would discount it completely.

    But, it shows a lack of candor, judicial temperament, and continuing to be an entitled jackass. It shows problems right now, in the present day.

    There are other judges without this douchebaggage — the Republicans should drop Kavanaugh and pick the next one on the list. Maybe vet them before nominating.

    10
  12. george says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    But he’s lying. At a guess he’s still a secret drunk, and a mean one. He is obviously unfit to be on the court, he’s nothing but a partisan hack.

    The problem is we suspect he’s lying, but don’t know it. Same for him being a secret drunk. Though I’d say his hearing responses make him clearly seem unfit to be on the court (if he can’t stay at least openly non-partisan under duress, then he’s not fit to be on the court).

    Which is why an investigation is so needed, to find out if he’s lying (and maybe if he’s a secret drunk). Investigate thoroughly for a month; if no corroborated evidence appears then assume he’s innocent. If some does – and I figure a month long investigation will turn up corroboration, for instance they’d be able to nail down the time and location of the various parties, who was there, and subpoena everyone. That would clear the air one way or the other.

    Really, if they think he’s innocent then the best thing they could do is order a month long investigation and see what it finds. That they don’t suggests they’re worried that he is in fact lying.

    Though as I said, even if he were telling the truth, even if his partisan reaction was based on honest anger about being slandered, his character under pressure isn’t what you’d expect from a supreme court justice. Imagine Ginsburg or Scalia in that situation – they’d probably have sharp, witty retorts, but they’d keep their cool, remain judges. Kavanaugh failed the duress test.

    2
  13. Bill says:

    @Michael Reynolds:

    But he’s lying. At a guess he’s still a secret drunk, and a mean one.

    Maybe not so secret about being mean- “This grotesque and coordinated character assassination will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country,” Kavanaugh said. “And as we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.” After that assertion, imagine being a Democratic official or liberal interest group who brings a case before the court and loses it in a 5-4 decision with Kavanaugh in the majority.

    Some food for thought. I didn’t watch Ford’s testimony, just some of Kavanaugh’s. Things that bug me

    The dems knowing about Ford but no in their questioning of Kavanaugh both in hearing and writing not once alluding to his past behavior.

    I’ve portrayed sexual assault and the victims a few times in my fiction writing and I’ve gained a little knowledge because of it. Victims not coming forward at once, look at the Roman Catholic scandals of late, is quite common and understandable.

    Sheldon Whitehouse is an idiot. His interview on CNN about a week ago was priceless.

    1
  14. Scott F. says:

    But he was certainly an entitled bro who drank a lot and, quite probably, acted badly toward girls.

    James, if you are certain of this assessment, then you are certain that Kavanaugh committed perjury just yesterday. Whether he did what he’s been accused of with Ford is immaterial now, he is provably willing to lie under oath in a Senate committee hearing.. That alone is disqualifying, not to mention criminal.

    9
  15. James Pearce says:

    But this is an incredibly emotional issue. And, to the extent that Kavanaugh becomes the deciding vote to overturn Roe or otherwise rules on issues that pertain to women, not only will the legitimacy of those rulings will be tainted but the image of Kavanaugh maniacally laughing while assaulting 15-year-old Christine Blasey will come to mind.

    I suppose this is why we need a Blue Wave. To prevent weak and incompetent congressional Democrats from completely poisoning the well when their feeble strategies prove to be fruitless.

    The naked appeal to emotion is also pretty disgusting. I’ve read I don’t know how many of “these Kavanaugh hearings are re-traumatizing me” pieces over the last few days, on Twitter and elsewhere, and not only does it strike me as unnecessary –for God’s sake, love yourself enough to seek refuge– it strikes me as counter-productive.

    Is this how to create a motivated voter, by stressing people out? Considering turn-out will be a factor, will all the Dem voters combobulate themselves in time for the mid-terms?

    1
  16. Joe says:

    And the notion that a bunch of the bros put “Renate Alumnus” on their pages as a way to honor some girl at another school who they greatly admired is simply not credible.

    Like most people, I am trying to figure out whom to believe. And I don’t assume Kavanaugh did what he is accused of doing. But his overplaying of the facts makes him less credible and leads me to conclude he is willing to lie to get this job. There are several examples, but the “Renate Alumnus” quote to me is the banner example. I was in high school. We talked about girls this way (and you can bring this up in my SC nomination hearing), even about girls who were friends of ours. That was rude and wrong, but that is how high school boys are. We didn’t assault girls (at least I didn’t). If Brett can’t be honest about that, he is not honest.

    To the same story point, I thought the low point of his opening statement was when he brought up this incident and then said, almost as an aside “sorry about that to her” or something like that. Wow! Thanks, Dude. The right statement at that time was to say “that element of our yearbook was an embarrassment to me and my friends, and I am sorry that I did that and I am even more sorry that it has dragged this woman’s name into these proceedings.”

    4
  17. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @James Joyner: “I don’t think there’s enough evidence to deny Kavanaugh a promotion.”

    Congratulations! You’ll get your wish. Binge drinking frat boy “who undoubtedly isn’t who he was as a teen” it is.

    ETA: You should be more sanguine about it. The side you prefer won the day. All is well in the best of all possible worlds.

  18. Not the IT Dept. says:

    I watched a grown man throw a tantrum that would embarrass a three-year-old on national television, and I’m supposed to see him as some kind of victim? Hysterical bluster and paranoid conspiracy mongering shows he’s not fit to hold the position he currently holds, let alone the Supreme Court.

    I tend to agree with Chris Hayes: they’re both telling the truth but Kavanaugh was so drunk he doesn’t remember anything, feels he’s being attacked but quite obviously is afraid that it’s all true.

    To vote for this putz while not even looking at Merrick Garland means the Republicans are crossing a line that they will live to regret.

    10
  19. Moosebreath says:

    @Bill:

    “After that assertion, imagine being a Democratic official or liberal interest group who brings a case before the court and loses it in a 5-4 decision with Kavanaugh in the majority.”

    This a thousand times. And of course, recusing himself on any such case would not be considered.

    2
  20. Gustopher says:

    @Not the IT Dept.:

    I tend to agree with Chris Hayes: they’re both telling the truth but Kavanaugh was so drunk he doesn’t remember anything, feels he’s being attacked but quite obviously is afraid that it’s all true.

    He lied so boffing much that I don’t think we can use the phrase “telling the truth” even if he didn’t sexually assault her.

    I think he doesn’t remember because it wasn’t important to him — he just treated women like chattel all the time, and thought that was just fine, and why is she complaining now.

    Maybe he was trying to rape her. Maybe his idea of a joke was to make her think he was going to rape her.

    But he’s angry as hell that this woman is bringing it up now and trying to ruin his life. How dare she?

    5
  21. Andre Kenji de Sousa says:

    To me part of the problem is that Kavanaugh is proving to be a pretty incompetent lawyer. In the end the calendars helped made the case for the other side. No jailhouse lawyer or ambulance chaser would do these unforced errors.

    Besides that, the jigsaw puzzles pieces for Ford are connecting. His pieces does not. I had friends on High School that drunk and that were horrible students, but no one on Mark Judge level.

    2
  22. Steve V says:

    While I take perjury seriously, let alone for judges, this isn’t a material matter …

    I strongly disagree. His lies were material. Imagine he answered all of the questions honestly. We would be talking about things very differently. We would be wondering if a guy who drank a lot as a young man might have tried to force himself on a young woman who also had been drinking, at a time in history when some might not have thought such a thing was rape.
    Before the hearings began, those of us who were capable of believing that both of them were being honest had two theories of how that could be: either Ford had mistaken Kavanaugh for someone else, or Kavanaugh had done something while he was drunk but either didn’t remember it or “remembered it differently.” Now that the hearing is over, which seems more likely? I would submit that Kavanaugh was so comically trying to recharacterize his youthful self that he was indeed trying to hide the possibility of any culpability. And since we are justified in drawing negative inferences from false testimony, that just made it more likely imho that he was culpable.
    Chait wrote a piece in which he argued that what’s really happening is that Kavanaugh doesn’t think his boorish frat-bro behavior as a young man should stand in the way of his confirmation to the court. That actually isn’t an unreasonable position and would have been and interesting discussion to have. But we didn’t have that conversation because Kavanaugh was so obviously BSing about who he was.
    You don’t think his lying was material?

    6
  23. Kathy says:

    Many Republicans think democrats and Liberals succeed by portraying themselves as victims. So now they are doing that too.

    Kavanaugh, to be sure, is no victim. Holding someone to account for their actions, especially for such an important office, is not in any way any kind of persecution. But to hear Conservative pundits, there were only Democrats in that room, and they put him on the rack and held his feet to the fire while they questioned him.

    A lot of politics is perception. Kavanaugh was playing to El Cheeto and his base, and a little to the rest of the GOP. The hearings weren’t about finding the truth or even holding Kavanaugh accountable, but about providing an excuse for confirming an unsuitable candidate to a lifetime appointment.

    3
  24. MikeyParks says:

    So Kavanaugh held her down with one hand, put another hand over her mouth, and used his third hand to try to undress her? And even using his three hands, she still got up and left. And this is part of a “credible” charge? It seems like “unwanted, non-sexual wrestling” is all that allegedly happened. That women would consider this a heinous crime that would haunt someone for 36 years speaks to the minds of women.

  25. Steve V says:

    @MikeyParks: why didn’t your guys in the GOP have the balls to say this yesterday?

    3
  26. Steve V says:

    Also re Kavanaugh’s credibility, is there anyone who really believes his testimony about Kozinski or the Miranda affair?

  27. dazedandconfused says:

    Hemingway’s definition of courage crossed my mind when comparing Ford and Kavanaugh yesterday. I think it fair to say yesterday’s hearings reveled Kavanaugh’s character.

    I would bet Kavanaugh will not pan out to be an influential Justice in the Supreme Court. He will be like Clarence, predictable and dependable to vote in a certain way but unlikely to sway the opinions of others.

    McConnell is clearly and openly proud of himself for gaming the Senate rules to pack the courts with ideologues. Certainly a lot of the rulings of the past half century or so will be brought before the courts again now that his project has achieved it’s goal. I believe Roberts knows that if the court spits out highly unpopular rulings on a regular basis the traditional role of the Supreme Court could be threatened.

    Roberts has his work cut out for him, if so.

    3
  28. grumpy realist says:

    @MikeyParks: How many times have you been sexually assaulted?

    3
  29. Franklin says:

    @James Joyner:

    I still think he’s innocent of the charges.

    I’m genuinely curious how people are coming to a conclusion here. You’ve also said you believe Ford had some sort of traumatic experience similar to what she’s described. So you think she mistook his identity?

    And what do you think about him lying about so many trivial matters? Off the top of my head:
    1) No, it wasn’t legal for him to drink in Maryland in high school.
    2) Yes, he did drink. And yes, he did drink heavily.
    3) All the yearbook stuff.
    4) He’s lied about his classmates denying the allegations when their statements were clear that they did not recall the incidents.

    Why does he need to lie so much? Why are you believing him on anything at this point?

    3
  30. Hal_10000 says:

    My strong preference would have been for Kavanaugh to simply admit that, well into his college days, he routinely drank way too much. That, no, he never blacked out such that he would forget having attempted to rape someone but that, sure, he was a drunken jackass on way too many occasions

    This, to me, is a key point. Because the picture that is emerging from everyone is one I could live with: a young man who tended to drink too much and be obnoxious but who eventually matured and became an upstanding person. The denials, however, put him in a bad position of now trying to refute a bunch of people who said he was a bit obnoxious when he was young. And there’s no reason for the lie, other than ego and a refusal to cede any ground.

    It’s our politics in a nutshell.

    3
  31. Steve V says:

    @Hal_10000: Exactly. Except I believe there are people who would own up to their youthful transgressions if in a similar position. Yesterday just showed that Kavanaugh’s honor and good name aren’t good enough.

  32. James Pearce says:

    @MikeyParks:

    That women would consider this a heinous crime that would haunt someone for 36 years speaks to the minds of women.

    This kind of thing is garmonbozia/manna to a superficial, bullying left. It’s what they eat before they bound out of the trench on every suicidal charge.

    Let them starve.

    1
  33. James Pearce says:

    @Hal_10000:

    And there’s no reason for the lie, other than ego and a refusal to cede any ground.

    In our culture? There’s plenty of reason.

    1
  34. Franklin says:

    @MikeyParks: You sound like an expert in rape, no offense.

    2
  35. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Franklin:

    I’m genuinely curious how people are coming to a conclusion here.

    The conclusion is based on the desire to have a SCOTUS that leans far enough to the right to undo all the “evil” perpetrated by “the Left” (and need I remind you that they hate America and want to destroy it?) over the decades that have ensued since that fateful day that EARL WARREN (!!!) singlehandedly decided that black children should be permitted to invade the schools.

    1
  36. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @James Pearce: bullshit.