The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

While Watching the #Kavanaugh Hearing

Posted on | September 27, 2018 | 1 Comment

Not going to live-blog today’s Senate Judiciary Committee, exactly, but I do want to have a thread to share a few of my thoughts and allow the commenters to provide their own feedback. When confronted with something like Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation, intelligent people must consider the possibility that it is either true or false. If she is telling the truth, not only did Brett Kavanaugh engage in bad — and perhaps criminal — behavior, but he is also lying in his denials. Yet this would also mean that all the other people named by Professor Ford as witnesses, but who instead denied any knowledge of the events she described, are also lying. The fact that these other witnesses failed to corroborate Professor Ford’s story, and that by her own admission she never told anyone about it until 2012, makes this story unverified although we cannot claim to know that she is lying. That is to say, it is still possible that Professor Ford’s story could be true even if no one else remembers the particular house party she described. This perplexes me, and it should bother everyone, for many reasons. Having called attention to this crucial aspect of the drama, however, I’ll leave off for now.

UPDATE: Observing the reaction on Twitter, it’s obvious that many people who have never watched a Senate committee hearing are watching this one. So at least this televised trainwreck will have some educational value. Lemons, lemonade, some assembly required.

UPDATE II: So, it’s five minutes of Democrats pontificating, alternating with five minutes of patient fact-based question from the lawyer chosen by the Republican side of the committee. Chairman Grassley occasionally makes a few points.

Via Stephen Green at Instapundit:

“Feinstein is paving the way to prohibit questions on Ford’s character yet in he/she said cases, it is one’s impression of character that is the determining factor. There’s nothing else to go by when you have to unsubstantiated claims.”
Feinstein is no dummy. She’s trying to rule out in advance the only meaningful questions.

UPDATE III: Can I mention that politics is a team sport? This is important to understand. When a waitress at a D.C. restaurant claimed that Ted Kennedy and Chris Dodd tried to make a “sandwich” with her, Republicans were like, “Believe the survivors!” So you have to understand, in this particular situation, that the debunking of Professor Ford’s claim is a task undertaken by Republicans as a partisan duty, in the same way that defending Professor Ford as 100% credible is a partisan duty for Democrats. I don’t like this. It’s not my choice, but has been thrust upon me, to defend Judge Kavanaugh and to decry the tactics used by Democrat in their attempt to derail his nomination. We must fight the battles we are in, without regard to how we got into them. There is no use wishing things were some other way than they actually are.

UPDATE IV: This hearing is traumatizing me. Having to listen to pious lectures about “credibility” from, e.g., Senator Blumenthal? Recovering from this will require years of therapy. Or maybe a few beers. Readers are invited to contribute to the Trauma Recovery Fund.

UPDATE V: A Few Thoughts on Prosecutorial Discretion.

UPDATE VI: Watching Judge Kavanaugh’s opening statement. It’s gut-wrenching, and also makes me angry enough to chew through steel. As he recites all the evidence pointing toward his innocence, you get the sense of how wrong it was for him to have been falsely accused in such a manner, simply because the Democrats wanted to block his nomination.

UPDATE VII: Wow. Fireworks. CrazyTown.

FINAL UPDATE: Graham Emerges Heroic.



 

Category: Senate, Supreme Court

Comments

One Response to “While Watching the #Kavanaugh Hearing”

  1. #Kavanaugh Hearing Update: A Few Thoughts on Prosecutorial Discretion : The Other McCain
    September 27th, 2018 @ 1:37 pm

    […] watching today’s morning session of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I found myself thinking about that 2013 case, in which an 18-year-old former high-school […]