The Patriot Post® · Kavanaugh Hearings: The Farce Continues
As predicted, the testimony of Dr. Christine Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh solved nothing. Ford was credible, compelling, emotional, and 100% certain that Kavanaugh assaulted her. While I could have done without the tears, Kavanaugh was credible, compelling, emotional, and 100% certain he didn’t assault her or anyone else, ever. Given that you can’t prove a negative, any answer has to rest with the evidence brought forward by the accuser. That’s the way America works. There was zero corroborating evidence from the accuser, and in fact those she cited as “witnesses” all denied, under penalty of felony, that they remember anything that supports her claim.
Since it is entirely possible Ford suffered a traumatic event like the one she described, albeit the attacker may not have been Kavanaugh, wouldn’t the most useful questions have been:
How well she did she know him?
How many times before the alleged attack had she seen him?
How can she be so sure she recognized him?
I am dismissing the theory that Ford is part of the Democrat plot, but that proves nothing about whether Kavanaugh was the attacker. Even though I thought Republicans displayed the height of cowardice by taking the politically expedient way out and punting the questioning to a female attorney, I thought they did that so Ford could be asked appropriate questions. But nothing of the sort happened.
There was zero probing into her background and familiarity with Kavanaugh, nothing about the sequence of her therapy that could have shed light on how this surfaced, nothing about what took her all this time to come forward when Kavanaugh was in the public eye for years as a district judge, and no follow-up questions about her contacts with Democrat operatives or information about who was paying her bills. All those delve into credibility, which is key, and evaluate her ability to know who Kavanaugh was, which is even more key.
It became obvious the GOP was so afraid of any #MeToo backlash that it landed on a strategy to throw softballs at Ford and rely on Kavanaugh to make the case. Given Kavanaugh’s prior performances, that was a highly risky approach. It was not clear at all he had it in him. In fact, at break time, I felt the game was over and Kavanaugh was toast. Then he rallied by showing the kind of anger and indignation that any commonsense human would expect from someone who had been accused of the most horrendous of crimes, with no supporting evidence, which he knew he didn’t commit.
He also rightly called out the Democrat machine for its disgraceful conduct and correctly cited the purely political motivations. Who wouldn’t? But in spite of Democrat efforts to paint him as claiming Ford was part of the Left’s sham, he never accused Ford of that — only Democrats — and said he had no ill will toward her; she was as much a victim of the Democrat tactics as he was.
In the height of irony, Democrats precipitated this emotional reaction and then called his response evidence that he didn’t have the temperament to be on the Supreme Court. But they didn’t seem fazed at all by their absurd lines of questioning that ranged from asking why Kavanaugh wouldn’t demand an FBI investigation (news flash guys: that’s not his call) to whether fart jokes in high school were a disqualifying event. Later in the hearing, the GOP essentially fired the woman attorney and took over the questioning, led by the incredible “someone had to tell the truth” speech by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC).
The good news is that Kavanaugh was voted out of committee, but nothing was resolved. The absence of any corroborating evidence to back up Ford’s accusations would usually mean that the tie would go to Kavanaugh. But then Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) suddenly got religion. Supposedly, he added a condition that the FBI needed to “investigate” further because he was accosted in an elevator on his way out by a couple of Democrat activists who yelled at him that they were victims of sexual assault, and if he voted yes on Kavanaugh, that would mean he didn’t care about them. Forget the illogical nature of that statement — it was conveniently captured on video tape, and Flake caved. The cynic in me might think this was as far from a principled decision as one can get — a calculated ploy to endear the retiring senator to the left, enhance his chances at an MSNBC gig, and exact his pound of flesh revenge on Trump. Don’t be surprised when Flake finds that he simply has too many continuing doubts to vote aye.
But his condition was quickly adopted by other senators in politically tough situations. Even President Donald Trump had to recognize that without the FBI chiming in, the votes weren’t there. I would have preferred that he called everyone’s bluff and gone ahead anyway, but that’s not how the game is played in DC these days. So the FBI is off to the races with what is described as a “background check” that will only go back over the alleged incidents already on the table and be over in less than a week.
Unless those who have already submitted sworn statements change their minds and admit to perjury, the FBI is going to do its interviews and come up with exactly the same information that we already have. Even Ford’s friend, who Ford claims was a witness and who also denies any knowledge, has said she is not changing her position. Interestingly, during the hearing, when Ford was asked how she might explain her friend contradicting her account, she opined that her friend was going through health problems, implying that maybe her memory was being altered. The GOP attorney let even that one slide.
So what now? Democrats get their wish, wavering GOP senators have political cover, maybe even a few Democrats switch sides, and Kavanaugh is voted in, right? Not in this lifetime. Kavanaugh is so critical to Democrats because he represents a potential existential threat to their tactic of using the Supreme Court to push through liberal policies that Democrats would be unable to enact through the ballot box — Roe v. Wade is the poster child for this — which puts them most at risk of losing their extremist donor base. But it’s much bigger than that: The very power base of Democrats is at stake, which is why they will not stop.
Their goal has been to derail or delay the Kavanaugh appointment at least to give them a shot at taking back the Senate in a month and putting any conservative nomination on ice until 2020. There are no limits to this, as evidenced by a tweet by a Clinton operative saying that if Kavanaugh is confirmed, “he would not serve for life.” And you think that violence is a full stop?
The one-week delay while the FBI merely confirms the obvious will be used by Democrats to dig up more accusations and more excuses, all coupled with an even more vicious PR campaign in concert with the media to smear Kavanaugh and possibly get him to withdraw. Democrats and the media are already mocking the “limited” nature of the FBI probe and trying to raise concerns about Kavanaugh continuing to coach girls’ basketball — we wouldn’t want sex offenders interacting with our daughters, would we? Utterly disgraceful. My bet for the next shoe to drop is the filing of official criminal complaints by Ford and/or the other accusers with the local police — we can’t have a vote for a Supreme Court nominee while he is under criminal investigation, can we?
To paraphrase Barack Obama, yes, we can. Enough is enough. Some months ago, there was debate on whether Trump should push forward his Court nominee before or after the midterms. There were valid arguments on both sides, but I came down on the side of pushing it through before because I thought if Democrats made it their key issue and failed, it would so demoralize their base that it would improve GOP chances of keeping its majorities. I still believe that — even more so now that Democrats have shown their true colors. They are even trying to hedge their bets by promising to impeach Kavanaugh if he is confirmed. But that only makes my point: If all they have is impeachment (of Trump too) as a campaign platform, the GOP’s odds just went way up if Kavanaugh is confirmed prior to the vote.
So, absent a change of heart by the key witnesses or a new credible bombshell, ignore any further demands and vote. Let the chips fall where they may. I remain convinced after watching the ridiculous spectacle orchestrated by Democrats that any reasonable human would understand what is going on and completely understand Kavanaugh’s anger. It has nothing to do with disrespecting women or disbelieving women who have been subject to sexual assault; it’s all about evidence and a thorough due process to get to the truth. Anything less than confirming Kavanaugh in the next 10 days would shut the book on due process, the rule of law, and the principle of innocent until proven guilty — not to mention the GOP.