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Democrats Have Gone to the Mattresses. Someone Tell the Republicans.
The Brett Kavanaugh nomination serves as a useful reminder of why about one-third of the US electorate are firm Trump supporters. While Democrats declare war in the Senate, Republicans are lining up to buy Kavanaugh’s accuser plane tickets. If Trump were chairman of the Judiciary Committee, do you think he’d respond to waking up with a horse’s head in his lap by asking Ms. Ford if she preferred a window or aisle? Of course not. He may lose an eye in the confrontation but you can be sure he’d emerge with Dianne Feinstein’s bloody ear clenched between his teeth.
Much has been said about the damage done to the institution by the Democrats’ petulance while ignoring the institutional damage done by Republicans in humoring them. “But the optics!” shout Republican pollsters. Whenever I hear the “optics” argument I can’t help but notice that it invariably refers to how things might likely appear to the Democrats’ base. To an extent, this makes sense as in lieu of workable ideas, “optics” is all the Democrats’ base has. But what about the Republican base? Isn’t abandoning fundamental principles of the Constitution also a “bad look?”
If there’s one aspect of this saga upon which there seems to be a consensus it’s that Dr. Ford’s voice “deserves to be heard.” I know it can’t be said in polite company but I will anyway: no she doesn’t. What she deserves is to be called what she is: a Democrat activist who’s smearing a good man’s name. No fewer than 65 women have testified on behalf of Kavanaugh’s character and my, understanding is that I’m obliged to believe the women.
How long do Democrats think they can put off the inevitable? Given the weak-kneed state of Republicans in the Senate, the answer is: forever. Democrats have come a long way from reflexively standing with the accused to reflexively standing with the accuser. If only we could harness the Republican establishment’s instinct to indulge Democrats then we could meet the world’s energy needs for a thousand years.
One of Ford’s demands is that if she is to testify she must do so only after Kavanaugh. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if she insisted he do so in cuffs and an orange jumpsuit. Grassley doesn’t seem to realize that as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee he calls the shots, not Ford. Instead one gets the impression that at some level Grassley believes that due process and such is blaming the victim.
In fairness to Ford, it’s understandable that she might be fuzzy on basic details like where the alleged incident took place. After all, this was so long ago in the past that Dianne Feinstein was only about sixty years old at the time. I’ll remind readers that it was a very different era then. In those days, making an allegation actually began the process of proof rather completed it. One gets the impression that despite her strident denials Ford may in fact have Kavanaugh confused with someone else — so long as it was another Republican.
Hard to believe this is the same GOP that failed to repeal Obamacare despite controlling the Executive branch and both houses of Congress.
Published in Politics
No. They want to be able to argue they made every effort to be fair and accommodating. I support that.
Mcconnell doesn’t write checks he can’t cash. Have a drink and have some faith.
I can see two different viewpoints on the Republicans Senators with respect to these delays in the judiciary committee’s vote on Kavanaugh.
On the one hand, I was furious with Senator Flake for saying, when Ford’s accusations were made in the Washington Post 6 days ago, that he was not comfortable voting on Kavanaugh until the Senators have had a chance to dig in to the allegations.
My reaction was, “Take the damn vote,” just as @westernchauvinist wrote in a comment above.
On the other hand, I can see some advantage in allowing Ford and her attorney expose themselves as cowards and manipulators, making detailed requests of the Senate judiciary committee, demanding that committee attorneys not be allowed to ask Ford questions.
Grassley’s willingness to delay the vote on Kavanaugh has allowed this behavior on the part of Ford and her attorney to become part of the public record. So, if there is anyone among the general voting public (or even in the Senate) who was “on the fence” regarding Kavanaugh and Ford, they might no longer be on the fence. They might have concluded that there is something fishy about someone with this explosive, important “news” to tell but who, when push comes to shove, always finds excuses as to why they can’t get around to telling it.
Ultimately, if the GOP confirms Kavanaugh before October 1st (9 days from today), I won’t be too P.O.ed at the GOP senators for the delay. Maybe I should be.
In any case, if by October 1st we are still scratching our heads, wondering if Kavanaugh is going to be confirmed or not, the Republican Senators will be getting a lot more criticism from the conservative base than they are currently getting.
Ann Coulter will no longer be telling jokes about Ford; she’ll be issuing criticisms of McConnell, Grassley and the rest.
It’s politics, not war. The Republican Senators, operating in a hostile media environment, are mindful of the upcoming election.
The appeasement analogy doesn’t apply. In war, you can achieve a decisive and final victory. In politics, we erect a trophy, sing the paen and gird our loins for the next fight.
I think this is correct. My hope is that the GOP has figured out a way to win both the battle over Brett Kavanaugh and the battle of November 2018. By placing their bets on Professor Ford and her flimsy allegations dating back to the days when Devo was popular, the Democrats are playing with a very weak hand. Though the media is trying to pretend it’s a strong hand.
I like that the fear is post-traumatic claustrophobia rather than plunging to your death from 30,000 feet. In her defense, I also have claustrophobia on flights but mine is rage-induced from sitting in economy and having some kid kicking the back of my seat. Since the GOP is being so nice and all, maybe they could buy her a first class ticket with an empty seat next to her and unlimited drinks. That’s probably how she handled it when she flew to Hawaii for that internship.
Thanks for the very funny post — I needed it!
My fear is that once they have their say, some person will mysteriously surface and claim Ford told them about this when it happened. Giving the Democrats and the press, but I repeat myself, another news cycle. This time to call Kavanaugh a perjurer!
Or defund Planned Parenthood.
But they managed to get that tax cut passed.
There are some hills the Republican Senators (including the mushy moderate ones like Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins) are willing to die on and some they are not willing to die on.
They were willing to use the nuclear option to get Gorsuch confirmed to the US Supreme Court. They were willing to enact the tax cut despite constant whining from the media and Democrats (but I repeat myself) about the unfairness of it. On planned parenthood, pro-choice/pro-abortion Republican Senators like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (not to mention other “pro-life” Republicans who don’t really give a fig about abortion) aren’t going to expend energy to defund planned parenthood.
Obamacare repeal was an issue that is popular among the libertarian-free enterprise wing of the Republican party but unpopular among all of those Republicans who support the GOP not on economic issues but because they want to hang on to their guns, oppose abortion and fear the Democrats’ insanity on a host of other issues.
Of course, many of us here on Ricochet are conservative on all of the issues, including guns, abortion, taxes, regulation, federal courts. But not everyone who votes Republican is like that. I’ve known lots of Republicans who have told me that they support Canadian style health care.
So, we are where we are. The good news is that (I think) the GOP will confirm Kavanaugh. They will just take about a week or two longer to accomplish it than we would prefer.
This broad’s nuts.
I heard that Psychologist Ford is afraid of flying, therefore she needs to drive from California to DC.
Cocaine Mitch has it all under control.
Well, @daviddeeble, I was going to pull a couple of good zingers from this wonderfully written piece and comment on them, but as luck would have it, there are just too many of them to separate the great ones from the greater ones. Funny and dazzlingly thoughtful, you’ve very clearly highlighted the standard operating procedure of a political class that doesn’t mind marching to the beat of the progressive drummer.
It remains to be scene whether Dr. Ford will insist on a large bowl of M&Ms with all the red ones removed, but if she does, the GOP will acquiesce. Meanwhile, thanks for an outstanding read, sir.
I do think they had to offer her the opportunity to testify. I don’t think they needed to submit to this charade she and her lawyers have been putting on for the past few days though. Witnesses don’t get to negotiate who gets to question them, or who gets to testify after them and absent really extraordinary circumstances, they don’t get a say in who’s in the room or whether it’s televised or by who. They certainly don’t get to demand a law enforcement investigation into their allegations before they even put them under oath. Maybe you have a little leeway on the date. But that’s about it. Other than that the answer is “I’m sorry professor, but this is a senate committee hearing. You want input into the Senate’s rules, get yourself elected.”
By the way, CNN is reporting another alleged attendee of the party who has no recollection of it. This one is a woman and a lifelong friend of Ford. The evidence that this just never happened at all is starting to pile up.
If you’re not keeping track:
Basically in the “for” column we have . . . Ford’s allegation.
In the “against” column we have
a) denials from Kavanaugh himself,
b) denials from literally everyone else alleged to have been present;
c) character evidence from a small army of female classmates – up to and including several former Kavanaugh girlfriends – who vocally insist the allegations are completely inconsistent with the character of the young Kavanaugh.
Also in the “against” column should be counted the variations in Ford’s allegations over time with respect to such things as the number of people present, and the extreme vagueness of her allegations with respect to things like time and place.
You just don’t convict Kavanaugh on this record. Indeed, if this is all there is, he could sue her for defamation and likely win.
I love this. This is the “Tiger Mom”
SHE “GROOMED” THEM! lol
Yale is full of hysterical leftists. Perfect.
This makes me insane. The best way to slow down socialism is to wipe out the ACA and start over. Very doable, and very sensible. Morons.
Headline I’d like to see: “Democrats Dismiss Voices of Women”
“Democrats have refused to listen to the voices of dozens of women who have spoken of the positive impact Judge Kavanaugh has had on them. Democrats do not believe these women. Democrats hate women.”
[There’s lots of evidence for the last sentence, but for now I think we can focus just on the fact that Democrats may be listening to one particular woman, but have for months dismissed the voices of many women.]
This guy is extremely smart. I wouldn’t get into an argument with him.
What would you call someone who said that decades ago they were placed on a cold, concrete slab and sodomized by spacemen with bulging eyes and long, cold probing fingers? Crazy, perhaps?
It is going to take one of the women of the Senate Republican caucus, or a candidate like Representative Martha McSally, to save the Senate and the Kavanaugh family from this slime fest. So, who will step up to be our Thatcher, or our Deborah?
You may be right. With any luck, Ford will testify while wearing a pussy hat.
Perhaps Kavanaugh will end up being sentenced to time already served.
Update: she’s walking to Washington with Resisters in tow.
Thanks, Dave! You make me laugh, too.
When you’ve lost your own witness…