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No guests this week, just our hosts reflecting on a week that will not soon, if ever, be forgotten. We look at the testimony from both Kavanaugh and Ford, the reaction and remarks from the Judiciary Committee, from the media, and from friends. We wind up with some predictions from the hosts as to whether or not Brett Kavanaugh will get confirmed. Give us your predictions in the comments.
Music from this week’s show: Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty
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Dr. Ford allegations seemed to have arisen in 2012 after seeing a therapist some thirty years after the soirée. This would not be the first time false memories have been implanted in a patient by their therapist so methinks that would be a good place for the FBI to start investigating.
Has it been established if the therapist visit in 2012 was before or after Kavanaugh was listed as a potential Romney Supreme Court nominee?
Like you, I found them both believable and not believable.
Clearly something terrible happened to Ms. Ford. I question: If she escaped a traumatic event that’s haunted her whole life, did anyone including her good friend see her run out? Ask her what happened? How did she get home since they said she was not a part of their group? In her defense, how did she remember the names of those at the house if they didn’t hang out? She said she had to go to a parking lot, on her cell phone and interview lawyers? Why? At that point, didn’t her family know she was coming out with it?
She clearly flies for vacations, visiting family and work, so saying she had to gear up the courage to fly didn’t wash. She was asked by the therapist had you seen Kavanaugh at other parties after and did anything happen? She said yes – 4 or 5 times, and no, nothing happened. Wow! Who would even stay in the same house with him if it did happen? Why didn’t the therapist question why would she attend a gathering with him there? There are mystery people, un-named at party – Ford would not say their names. Also someone sent her a Link to someone who looked like Kavanaugh and she said no – it wasn’t that person. Why was she ok with Kavanaugh serving on the high court up until now? Charges were not filed – apparently her parents or friends did not see traumatic symptoms in her after?
Kavanaugh seemed defensive with his answers and uncomfortable with the questions by the therapist. Red flag – yes, kids do dumb things, everyone drank too much back then – but a prospective Supreme Court nominee lying isn’t a good picture.
He cannot go backward. He has to see it forward. I agree and understand his anger – he’s built his life on quality – service to others. The bottom line, no matter the outcome, we cannot allow people to be bullied into submission and withdraw, whether it’s in an elevator, in a restaurant or theater, or a hearing. Our culture was displaying this unacceptable behavior well before this hearing.
Wow, Lileks mentioned Eames chairs.
First time I’ve heard anyone outside of my family or perhaps Missouri mention Eames. Speaking of classmates, Charles Eames went to school with my grandfather…
Thank you, thank you, thank you Rob Long. My mother was 16 when I was born. Until I was 18 she supported 5 children as a truck stop waitress, working the night shift including dealing with the bar crowd. I cannot comprehend how Doctor Ford’s emotional boo-boo rates with the real sexual harassment working class women have had to deal with. Even granting her a judgment on the pleadings, I can possibly understand why she would want Kavanaugh nixed from a short list anonymously. But why, after this came out, even if her allegations were true, would the penalty of hurting his family and destroying his life be appropriate punishment for what he did at 17 when he was falling down drunk?
I grew up in New Jersey, where Ruth Bader Ginsburg taught law. I remember one time I was on the beach and she walked by and gave me the evil eye, and I’ve never recovered from it. I think she should be impeached.
Ford is engaged in an act of evil, as sure as if she was a mugger. No sob story justifies agression against another.
I don’t care if she believes it, she does not have anything to come destroy this man’s reputation.
Ford was not believable. A lot of people on our side are trying to be nice by saying her testimony was compelling and that something happened to her. I do not care what happened to her. All of us have had things happen to us.
She is making a specific claim: Brett Kavanaugh shoved her in a room, turned up the music, jumped on top of her, held his hand over her mouth, and touched her breast.
Whether someone did something like this to her is totally irrelevant. The only thing that matters is whether Brett Kavanugh did it. He has totally denied it and she has zero evidence and the people she claim were present have refuted her claims.
She is not credible and is not believable. It doesn’t matter whether she believes it true or not. Whether or not she believes it’s true, her motivation is to destroy Kavanaugh’s life and career. If you believe her then you may think he deserves utter ruin. But you have to admit that what she is attempting to do is obliterate a man’s life.
If you are going to do that to a man then you need more than a fake baby-girl voice, no evidence, and a story that you never mentioned for 30 years but now that you did it keeps changing every time you tell it.
Unless you’re a Democrat senator, that is. Then it’s more than sufficient of an excuse to cast a good man into the abyss to beg favor from the God of Abortion.
I get Rob’s point about the frailty of thr mid-fiftysomethings on parade this week. That’s my age group: HS class of ’82.
The emotions were raw. Doxxing and death threats for everyone, Ford and Kavanaugh both. The fulcrum of America’s future rested on their shoulders; they’d been set up as sacrificial calves by IngSoc and EurAsia – nobody cared about them as individuals, only as the spearheads of their next assault. Dems were setting him up not as the next Justice, but the next Cosby. Denying him the promotion was only the beginning; the howling mobs we’re threatening impeachment from his current job, possibly jail time.
If that doesn’t break you, it’s sure likely to bend and twist you.
I didn’t envy either of them. I doubt I’d have held up as well. I’d have gone full Jeff Ross and burned the room down, one Roasted senator at a time. Maybe Giraldo. Damn the Tweetpedoes, full rant ahead.
Ford should be despised. She is the attacker her and deserves no sympathy.
How anyone could possibly not believe Kavanaugh is beyond me, strictly based on the fact that Ford has no one who corroborates her story while Kavanaugh has the other people she has named as being there stating they could remember no such party. Furthermore, Ford’s best friend, who she claims was there, says it didn’t happen. And, Rob, he has not denied drinking in high school and at times drinking too much. In fact, he absolutely said he was guilty of drinking. But, the Dems on the committee were trying very hard to portray him as a drunk during a time when he was a star athlete and at the top of his class. I don’t know about you, but the guys who were major drunks when I was in high school could not come close to claiming they were on the football and basketball teams and making good grades.
Ford is a pitiful, very emotionally vulnerable lady whose privacy should have been protected by the Dems. As Lindsey Graham said, she’s as much of a victim in this sordid mess as is Kavanaugh.
We need to fight for this nomination like we’ve never fought for anything before. If you read the comments on Ricochet, you’ll discover that 99% of your members feel the same way.
By the way, Rob, the next time you’re on Fox would you mind giving Ricochet a plug?
Ford is a bad lady. She is engaged in doing a bad thing. She is not pitiful.
I put Mrs. Ford in the Juanita Broaddrick category. She is a person who tells a highly credible account of a sexual assault, but for personal reasons chose not to go to the police at the time, and since so much time has passed, there is no conceivable way to prosecute a case against the alleged attacker. Interestingly, both women failed to tell the men in their lives (Ford’s father and Juanita’s husband) because they apparently felt some degree of blame for putting themselves in harm’s way. Similarly, each woman had a later run-in with their alleged attacker’s partner. Juanita attended several Clinton fundraisers soon after the attack – one where Hillary told her “I just want you to know how much Bill and I appreciate what you do for him.” That was cold-hearted in the extreme if Hillary had knowledge of the assault as Broaddrick believes. Ford ran into Mark Judge at the Potomac Safeway, and although he was very friendly with her prior to the assault, she now found him “nervous” with a “white face” and only able to muster an “uncomfortable” hello. That behavior, if accurate, bolster’s Ford’s account and tends to undermine the theories of mistaken identity floating about. I wouldn’t vote to convict either accused man, but given what I’ve heard, neither would I honor or reward them. The Democrats behavior has been shameful, but that does not erase Ford’s believable account.
I cannot understand how what Kavanaugh did to her at age 17 (assuming it even happened) can possibly justify the utter destruction of the man. I also cannot understand, assuming it happened, that she can’t get past this particular traumatic event suffered as a teenager 35 years later. She is that hungry for revenge?
Don’t look at psychology professors as self possessed analysts of their own inner workings. My father was psych Dept chair at the local uni. He also had a personality disorder of which he was wholly unaware (which is a symptom of PDs). The whole department consisted of nutjobs and fruitcakes. No offense to the sane therapists out there but you know whereof I speak: a lot of people go into psych to figure themselves out. Don’t be confused by Hollywood’s use of therapists as tranquil sages — they are there to provide insight into the characters. They are not more likely to have a handle on themselves than the average Joe.
My cousin, also a therapist, is convinced that she was sexually abused as a child but that she repressed the memory. She believes her father abused her and her 4 sisters and that they’re just in denial. She insists variously that her uncles also abused her, including my father, and also our grandfather.
So certain is she that she’s been totally alienated from the family for more than a decade. She believes it because it explains certain of her hang-ups. It makes absolute sense to her, it feels absolutely right. She would pass a lie-detector test. But there’s no way we were all abused and all repressed it and only she has the symptoms.
So yes, James, people can become convinced that something happened to them even in the absence of memory.
I agree 100%, also philosophy professors – I’ve never met one who wasn’t unbalanced.
Just FYI, Rachel Mitchell, who questioned Ford, is a prosecutor, not a therapist.
Well, this was certainly a dispiriting podcast. I was having a Roshoman “hour” where it seems that everyone was projecting their past personal experiences and college episodes as to “who dunnit.” Guzzling beer and attempted rape do not come in pairs! If that were so, we’d have millions of victimized women (and men) in this country.
Frankly, coming from the baby boomer generation, I am quite puzzled by Christine Blasey Ford’s “little flower” demeanor, which doesn’t comport with her education, her accomplishments, and her career. Certainly, where some of the first books women like me read was “Fear of Flying” and “Looking for Mr. Goodbar”, and who had to fend off crude guys at singles bars and college mixers, we dealt with the jerks, had encounters many of us would probably care to forget, but then moved on. I quite understand that politicians have to tread delicately on this subject. I also understand that many of them on both sides of the aisle are hypocrites and probably scared witless that they’ll be accused next (and probably with good reason, having lived in DC myself for several years).
The “truth” (hers or his) may never be known, but without facts, evidence, and “a body”, this debate will go nowhere. The prosecutor was right to avoid focusing on whether or not there was a sexual assault. That would have gotten nowhere. Instead, she tried to elicit facts — time, place, getting to and leaving the house — and even there, was unsuccessful.
What is really on trial is whether this nation will be ruled by law or ideological amoral mobs. If the democrats are successful in taking out Judge Kavanaugh, Katie Bar the Door!!! As someone said during the podcast, there is a good reason for basing our system of law on sound jurisprudence. To let mob rule control how this nation is governed will make the Revolution look like a snow ball fight.
I understand what Rob said about voting is the easiest way to deal with this, but lest he forget, the voters elected a Republican Congress and a Republican President. That doesn’t seem to have resulted in the desired outcome. In California, the votes of the electorate are routinely overturned by liberals who refuse to accept the outcome (Prop. 87, as well as restrictions on gay marriage). I may have had issues with the outcome myself, but nonetheless, unlike the Democrat politicians in the State, I did not seek to go to a sympathetic judge and declare the vote misguided, and therefore, to be ignored.
Our system of government is being actively undermined by unscrupulous liberals, bureaucrats who work actively to undermine the administration, and the liberal news and social media who deliberately skew the news away from the truth.
Finally, fake news in the New Yorker did not start with Trump. You might want to Google Jonah Lehrer in 2012. He not only self-plagiarized, he plagiarized!
When this is all over, it would be interesting if your producers could invite Ginny Thomas to appear on the show to talk about her experiences during her husband’s confirmation process. Also, instead of projecting your own ideas of whether or not Judge Kavanaugh was lying, I think it would be far more instructive to hear from John Yoo who most certainly could talk about Judge Kavanaugh’s years at Yale from personal experience.
@peterrobinson your wife needs to read this Ricochet thread, including the comments:
http://ricochet.com/556935/emotional-credibility/
We asked John to come on this week, but he was traveling overseas (which is also why there was no Law Talk this week). Ginny Thomas is a good idea. No idea if we could actually book her, though.
Many years ago, I picked up from somewhere, the adage that people often go into a work field or profession in order to fix themselves. Stupid people go into education (I found that, at the college I went to, the average GPA of students who were studying to be teachers, was lower than in the athletic department), crazy people go into mental health…
The only psychology-professional person I can remember ever “encountering,” who wasn’t herself/himself seriously off-balance, was Charles Krauthammer.
It’s easy to argue too that @peterrobinson is also wrong about the Supreme Court being “the disease” rather than another symptom. It’s another symptom of Congress and the Executive too, outsourcing their constitutional duties to the courts.
True, but the court is also accepting that outsourcing and engaging in both executive and legislative behavior. So they’re all to blame. Pox!
True, in a way, but that doesn’t make the Supreme Court “the/a disease.”
And, what do you think the result would be if the courts simply refused to do it? Not that that would happen, unless suddenly there was no leftism trying to “pass the buck.” But, just in theory.
There is no corroboration.
I cannot possibly exaggerate how much I like this post. My dad has narcissistic personality disorder, and I’ve had a bad therapist. This all makes perfect sense to me.
Plus how in the hell are you smart enough to get a PhD and then spend your whole life blowing off learning the word “exculpatory” like you’re some uneducated peasant.
Imo, this is a big deal.
They have to come up with firm procedures for this. If they don’t…
Can anyone tell me why this isn’t 100% true? Act accordingly.
Great post.
“Saving the sacrament of abortion.” The GOP and the libertarians would have far more power and Planned Parenthood would have a lot less overhead and fat salaries to cover every month if the GOP would stop with the legal threats on abortion and just make the moral case.
This is extreme Mises stuff, but good food for thought: Jim Bovard on the Terrible Politicization of America.
Just for the record–and I think this is really important–Juanita knew where her attack happened, and it was possible to determine when per the conference she was attending. There were schedules one could check.
Additionally, forget the state, the media did not take any interest at all in her account, but Christopher Hitchens did.
When a reporter said, “A-HA! The hotel room she describes doesn’t exist,” he actually did more digging and found out how development had changed the area.
As I recall Hitchens’ findings, there would have been the space exactly as she described it in the time period she described it. (Remember, Christopher Hitchens was not a conservative dude.)
I also do not see these particular cases as the same because the character of the man who is accused is different. There is a fairly established record of Bill Clinton’s philandering. AND there was a contemporary account of how Juanita was absolutely distraught on the day that this was supposed to have happened. A friend helped her get ice for her face, and Juanita told that person then that she had been assaulted.
I admit this is still circumstantial as we don’t have a dress with DNA on it, but those cases are not the same. The evidence is very different, and the charges were much, much more serious, in my mind.
I’m one of the women who rolls her eyes a little at the fragility of Ford over this incident at 15. I think it was probably very scary, but it does not rise to the level of life altering event in my mind unless one has something else wrong with her. (Yeah, that’s hard to say in public, but I’m going to say it, too.)
Women are not sexually assaulted every day, and not every woman has been sexually assaulted. I’m not sure I personally would classify this as sexual assault. (There’s something unpopular to say, but having spent my life as a woman, that’s how I see it.)
That is a very good point, and I didn’t vote for President Trump. You are completely right there.
The points made on the podcast about the seats that were lost per idiotic primary choices were also correct.