If it’s true that SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh didn’t sexually assault Christine Blasey Ford, why is he so opposed to an FBI investigation of an event he supposedly had no knowledge of and no involvement in? As a judge and a professed seeker of justice, wouldn’t he want law enforcement to investigate such matters? That was the key question, one he evaded time and time again during yesterday’s hearing. We begin today’s roundup with The New York Times and its summary of how non-credible Kavanaugh was during his Trumpian performance:
What a study in contrasts: Where Christine Blasey Ford was calm and dignified, Brett Kavanaugh was volatile and belligerent; where she was eager to respond fully to every questioner, and kept worrying whether she was being “helpful” enough, he was openly contemptuous of several senators; most important, where she was credible and unshakable at every point in her testimony, he was at some points evasive, and some of his answers strained credulity. [...]
Judge Kavanaugh’s biggest problem was not his demeanor but his credibility, which has been called in question on multiple issues for more than a decade, and has been an issue again throughout his Supreme Court confirmation process.
The Washington Post says the Senate can’t vote on Kavanaugh in light of yesterday’s hearing (but you can bet they will anyway, because Republicans have promised to “plow through” the truth):
Any deadline has been artificially imposed by the Republican majority for purely partisan reasons, a majority that was happy to leave a Supreme Court chair vacant for most of 2016. As we have said repeatedly, the Senate still has not been given access to all relevant documents, let alone fully checked out Ms. Ford’s allegation.
It would be irresponsible for Republicans to insist on an immediate vote. If they do, the responsible vote must be no.
Eugene Robinson:
Republicans have the votes — and those on the committee may now have the will — to “plow right through this” all the way to confirmation. But if they do, especially following the partisan allegations Kavanaugh made against Democrats in the Senate — many Americans may always suspect his decisions are motivated by politics rather than jurisprudence. [...]
President Trump tweeted his approval of the fighting spirit Kavanaugh displayed. But Trump can be coldblooded, and, while the majority on the Judiciary Committee seemed ready to move full steam ahead, quite a few GOP senators have been withholding judgment, at least publicly. Trump will have to gauge not just whether his nominee has the votes in committee but also whether he can prevail on the floor.
To the list of an awful day’s victims, add respect for the Senate and the Supreme Court.
Philip Bump notes Kavanaugh repeatedly misled the committee about witness statements which he falsely claimed exonerated him:
“Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated, it is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a longtime friend of hers,” Kavanaugh continued. “Refuted.”
That's a questionable determination.
Each of the three did make statements that did not corroborate Ford’s version of events, but none was fully exonerating for Kavanaugh.
Here’s John Nichols at The Nation:
The anger that Kavanaugh displayed while trying to preserve his prospects may have been cheered by President Trump and fierce Republican partisans—such as North Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham. But there was nothing judicious, let alone judicial, about the judge’s performance. He attacked Democrats on the committee. [...] For all of his complaints about the process, however, the nominee would not answer the question that mattered above all others: Why hasn’t he asked, why won’t he ask, for the FBI to examine the allegations that have been raised against him?
Here’s Harry Litman at USA Today:
In my 30 years as a prosecutor and lawyer, I have never seen a more credible witness than professor Ford. It’s not simply that the key details of her account hung together and that she provided the types of rich particulars that truthful witnesses provide, such as the second front door she insisted on in her home out of residual fear from the attack. Or that her account was supported by pre-nominaton statements from third parties (such as her therapist) and her own polygraph. Or that it comports with the key documentary evidence we do have.
It was, in a word, Ford’s demeanor.
Ryan Cooper at The Atlantic:
Ford was an extraordinarily compelling witness, and reports poured in of people watching her testimony with rapt attention across the country. Her quiet dignity, poise, and grace made a heroic counterpoint to the grotesque immorality of the Republican Party trying to ram Kavanaugh through the Senate before momentum is lost.
On a final note, do not miss Doreen St. Felix’s masterful analysis at The New Yorker:
Alternating between weeping and yelling, he exemplified the conservative’s embrace of bluster and petulance as rhetorical tools. Going on about his harmless love of beer, spinning unbelievably chaste interpretations of what was, by all other accounts, his youthful habit of blatant debauchery, he was as Trumpian as Trump himself, louder than the loudest on Fox News. He evaded questions; he said that the allegations brought against him were “revenge” on behalf of the Clintons; he said, menacingly, that “what goes around comes around.” When Senator Amy Klobuchar calmly asked if he had ever gotten blackout drunk, he retorted, “Have you?” (He later apologized to her.)
There was, in this performance, not even a hint of the sagacity one expects from a potential Supreme Court Justice. More than presenting a convincing rebuttal to Ford’s extremely credible account, Kavanaugh—and Hatch, and Lindsey Graham—seemed to be exterminating, live, for an American audience, the faint notion that a massively successful white man could have his birthright questioned or his character held to the most basic type of scrutiny. In the course of Kavanaugh’s hearing, Mitchell basically disappeared. Republican senators apologized to the judge, incessantly, for what he had suffered. There was talk of his reputation being torpedoed and his life being destroyed. This is the nature of the conspiracy against white male power—the forces threatening it will always somehow be thwarted at the last minute.