I can subscribe to the remarks of Bret Stephens in the New York Times on the accusations levied against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. Here’s a snippet:
I have absolutely no idea what, if anything, happened between Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford at a party in Maryland in the early 1980s.
Unless you were at the party, I believe that you don’t, either.
I believe that statements on the controversy that begin, “I believe Blasey,†or “I believe Kavanaugh†— because they jibe with personal experience or align with a partisan motive — are empirically worthless and intellectually dishonest. I believe the defect could be corrected by saying, “I want to believe†Blasey or Kavanaugh.
Read the whole thing.
Unless she’s flat-out lying, it’s hard to see how Kavanaugh actions were defensible. It’s not Kavanaugh and Ford–it’s Kavanaugh, Ford, and this guy Judge. With two people, a man can say I thought she was into it. But try saying, “I thought she was into it while my creepy friend watches.” Whatever he did, if something happened, was wrong. The line was crossed immediately.
And far as memory goes, she knew these two people, and panic and fleeing are far more tangible than what shirt the guy was wearing, or the exact sequence of events.
Bottom line is that she’s either lying or these two guys did something horrible and indefensible.
And so now we have a long time friend and supposed party mate of Fords who, through her lawyer, says in essence “I don’t know what the hell shes talking about.â€
Oopsey.
Drew,
You should try reading the stuff that’s sent to you. Who has Ford named this witness to? The Weekly Standard says her friend was an alleged witness. Politico says, I quote: “The committee believed Keyser was one of the unnamed people referred to in a Washington Post story whom Ford remembered attending the high school party.” That’s hardly anything to do with Ford. It seems to me that maybe the GOP is panicking, because she’s going to testify and they’re firing off random nonsense to keep hope alive.
More importantly, every named person in this should be called to testify, which the GOP seems not to want. My feeling is that Republicans do not want Ford to testify and they are looking for reasons to stop it. If they were confident, they would let her burn. What they’re weighing is stopping the hearings, and going for a vote.
The letter Ford sent to Sen Feinstein has the names of all 3 alleged witnesses. Now that all 3 witnesses have stated they have no recollection of the party (and 1 is a women and friend of Ms Ford), the GOP might let all 3 witnesses testify if Democrats release that letter (to freeze who could collaborate the allegations). It certainly lines up with my theory that a lot of information has been known to the media and those close to the nomination well before it became public.
To be honest; with this information; it’s likely all we are going to get until time travel is invented. The ball is on Republican Senators to decide whether they want to go ahead or give up.
Nice try, MM, but your pathetic and rank dishonesty is showing. YOU should try reading. First, as this was hot off the press I used the term “supposed.” That’s intellectual honesty. You might want to try it sometime.
But the truth is I don’t believe the Keyser is irrelevant point. More to the issue, did you see that the cretin Clinton lawyer, Katz, was smarter than you, not going for the mistaken identity defense. Rather, she decided to poo poo the notion of Keyser being capable of remembering because she was not the victim. Its bull, but shows an acumen north of yours.
Its a diversion. Keyser simply claims she has no recollection of Kavanaugh, ever, or this party. (And she is irrelevant for you because, well, you know, she simply emerged ghost-like from the ether, through a lawyer, and inserted herself into this process just for sport on a boring Saturday night. Not that she is a player. 15 minutes of fame or sumthin’ ..snicker…) That makes three, plus Kavanaugh. That leaves silly people like you left with “I believe simply because I believe without one iota of evidence.” It leaves people like me with, “its impossible to tell, but there is just a growing amount of insurmountable contras in this case of the unknowable.”
Go ahead, have fun, most progressives are now busy making public fools of themselves. Join in.
Watch McConnell; I expect the moment for overt action is here.
CuriousOnlooker’s recap is approximately correct. None of the parties reportedly mentioned in the accuser’s letter to Sen. Feinstein have corroborated her version of events, including Leland Keyser, reportedly a good friend of hers.
I continue to think that the Senate Judiciary Committee should conduct a closed-door hearing on this in which each party (the accuser, Kavanaugh, and the other parties mentioned in the accuser’s letter) testify under oath as to the events reported. It could also be done via affidavit.
Dave
Let’s say they did what you suggest.
!. What could be said that is dipositive and not already on the record?
2. Given discourse this past week, what could be said that would alter committee members views?
3. Why would one advocate a resolution scheme, given how disingenuous Katz’s negotiating posture has been, that plays into an obvious political stalling game. Only one side of events has participants who have been willing to testify expeditiously (Kavanaugh) and go on record in a legal sense (the so called witnesses.)
I can only imagine that there might be utility in exposing Katz’s strategy of non-lawyer inquiry and inverting the witness testimony protocol. But any thinking person has already observed that. Katz has already consistently rejected those, while being allowed to inflict maximum political and process damage. I wouldn’t advocate furtherance of this travesty.
Why are Republicans so intent on nominating this guy? They could have dropped him and told the president to nominate a woman, which can only help given their abysmal political approval among that demographic. Lots of female jurists are just as authoritarian as Kavanaugh.
Perhaps the selection process was born of principles and merit, not based upon genitals. But its interesting to see how the Dem slime strategy can work on some.
No one is seriously arguing that Kavanaugh is professionally unparalleled, which brings us right back to the question: why this guy, when the smart strategy in terms of electoral politics is to go with a woman? To say, “Mr. Kavanaugh, we believe you are an excellent nominee but in the age of #MeToo we think it would be better to go with another, equally excellent candidate?
Why this particular authoritarian government-worshipper?
You just repeated yourself, Ben. Advocating caving to prevailing mob sentiments. Further, can you really say with a straight face that the Dems would not have ginned up an alternative smear campaign against a woman? The greatest mistake being made in this whole debate is confusing the candidate with the goals of the political machine and handlers behind events. As I’ve stated, I’d speculate this is really all about power through legislation in the courts, with RvW simply the lever to ply with the abortionists. The tactics being used should be fought because they come with significant costs.
Drew’s comment makes me wonder what is in the record?
Ford gave a statement to someone in Congress not on the committee, who shared it with Feinstein (and WaPo), who sent a redacted version to the FBI. The redacted version was provided to the Committee, apparently under the auspices of the background check.
There are four “witness” statements denying the substance of the allegations as they understand them, though again through the prism of the accuser not making a written or oral statement to the committee. There are also presumably a mountain of written statements and testimony attesting to K’s character before the hearing was closed, and several FBI background checks.
Basically, this reads as a collateral attack on the Judiciary economy, which Ford’s attorney has impugned by the truth that they are a bunch of political hacks. I think the odds are that she ultimately doesn’t testify or present a statement, but does an interview on CNN.
“Judiciary economy” = Judiciary Committee”
To answer that question you’d need to examine the people who produced the list of candidate nominees. Trump didn’t come up with it himself; when a president produces his own list of potentials, he appoints Harriet Myers.
I might add that I suspect that Kavanaugh’s accuser did not expect that her name would be made public or that she would have to testify. I don’t know what she expected to happen. That Kavanaugh would withdraw his name from consideration on the basis of an accusation alone?
Ben,
Before Kavanaugh there was a woman in the running named Barrett. I forget the details, but the interview with Trump supposedly went badly. Maybe she wouldn’t let him grab her? She’s a devout Catholic and probably more hostile to Roe than Kavanaugh.
If we are going to force all these people to come and testify, then Ford’s therapist should be added to the list.
A charitable guess is Ms Ford expected that what she alleged was not the only incident in Kavanaugh’s life; ie. other women and incidents would be found once Congress went looking. It is what happened with many of the men accused of misconduct in the past couple of years. And if that happened; Kavanaugh would withdraw and nobody would really scrutinize Ms Fords claims.
In the world of #metoo the surprise is no one else came forward; and the women that do KNOW him actually came to his defense. Kavanaugh should be thankful to Ms Ford’s friend, for saying what she recalls; even if it gutted Ms Ford.
It seems Ms Ford’s lawyers served her poorly to at least try and verify with witnesses (esp her own friend) before going public. It is also almost criminal that a democratic senator or someone working for said senators decided to leak it with a good chance knowing what the alleged witnesses would say. They may well reap what they sow.
Less charitable interpretation I leave to others.
Well, so she’s a witness rather than what the ambiguous language said. My error. They should have her testify along with the other witness and Judge, who isn’t actually a witness. If you are accused of turning up the volume while your friend is assaulting somebody, you’re not a witness.
For Kavanaugh to be treated as innocent until proven guilty, you to have witnesses testifying and an investigation, and not just lawyers giving statements from people averse to having their lives upended. But the Senate is not doing that. As far as I can tell, they really hoped that Ford would not testify. That she’s going to do it is either brave or evidence of how trapped she is.
I think that’s a likely scenario, CuriousOnlooker.
PD:
I would assume that the WaPo reporter didn’t do his/her homework and assumed that someone named “Leland Keyser” was a boy. In other words was lazy and uninformed rather than dishonest.
Andy,
If the reason for sticking with Kavanaugh is that Trump won’t play ball, that would explain many things. The Republicans, should, in that case, use an empty court seat as a rally point for turnout in the general, but maybe Trump is nixing that too.
That is extremely generous to the Washington Post. It took random folks on twitter less then an hour to confirm Ms Keyser was the ex-wife of a democratic strategist that appeared on Fox News.
Would be interesting discovery if Mr Judge ever sues the Washington Post for deframation to determine if they withheld favorable information to him when they published the story.
Here is an interesting Washington post article shared on twitter.
https://wapo.st/2OGQjEY?tid=ss_mail&utm_term=.9b1522608e62
And the relevant part.
“In a brief interview at her home in Silver Spring, Keyser said that she did not recall the party, but that she was close friends with Ford and that she believes Ford’s allegation.
Before her name became public, Ford told The Post she did not think Keyser would remember the party because nothing remarkable had happened there, as far as Keyser was aware. Ford has said she did not tell anyone about the alleged assault until 2012.”
Here its pretty clear the Washington Post knew who Keyser was – and they interviewed her, but whether the interview was before or after the story went public is unknown. And interestingly Keyser left out the part about believing her friend when she sent her statement to the Senate.