It’s All On Kavanaugh

The Senate is set to vote on Brett Kavanaugh as early as today (Thursday, October 4), though they might wait till Friday.  The FBI turned in its report before 8:00 AM today, a whole day earlier than necessary and without interviewing many of the key players in this sham of a game.

The biggest sham in the entire debacle, however, is that this is some “sh*t show” as a former high school classmate put it.  That the mean Democrats have somehow made this all up just to derail President Trump’s wonderful nominee.  They’re playing politics, say the Republicans.

There are several holes in this theory, and I will try to enumerate them here as dispassionately as I can:

1. If you want to see “playing politics” with a Supreme Court nominee, look no further than Merrick Garland.  Remember him?  He was a moderate but highly rated judge even among Republicans.  They simply chose - out of thin air - to refuse to give him a hearing.  With nearly a year before the election, they said it was too close.  Why?  Just because.  They made it up because they did not want Barack Obama to have another justice.  THAT is playing politics.
2. If you want to see NOT playing politics, then look at Neil Gorsuch.  Democrats had every reason to be furious about Neil Gorsuch.  He wasn’t a great pick.  He’s highly conservative.  He shouldn’t have even been a nominee because the seat should have been Garland’s.  But did the Democrats do anything to stop him?  Oh, they complained, but that’s about all they could do because the Democrats were in the minority in every branch of government.  They could no more stop Gorsuch than they were able to push Garland through.
3. The Democrats are STILL in the minority.  That means that Republicans can push Kavanaugh through any time they want.  And it is only the GOP who is deciding the time frame.  As they so blatantly showed in the Garland case, there is no constitutionally mandated time frame, no deadline.  They just want to do this before the midterms in case they lose the majority.  THAT is playing politics.  In fact, the only reason they haven’t already gone ahead and confirmed him is because it would look bad.
4. Democrats did not invent Dr. Ford - or any of the other friends and acquaintances of Brett Kavanaugh who say he’s lying.  She offered her story on her own.  Oh, sure, Democrats delighted in hearing that there was something dirty about Kavanaugh, but so would the Republicans if there were something dirty on a Democratic pick.  That’s the world we live in and to whine about that is to be dishonest.  But they didn’t make up any of those people.  The one thing Democrats — well, one Democrat, Senator Diane Feinstein — can be reasonably criticized for is the timing.  It was inconvenient that the accusation came up so late in the process.  HOWEVER, this timing in only inconvenient, not part of a nefarious plot.  Here’s why:
1. Feinstein felt she could not mention the accusation earlier because Dr. Ford had not identified herself.  Dr. Ford felt — justifiably — reluctant to reveal her identity because of the treatment she would receive, and which she has in fact received.  This includes taunting by the President of the United States and death threats.  Who would want to go through that?
2. It’s unquestionable that Feinstein would have preferred to come forward with the accusation much earlier, to nip Kavanaugh in the bud, as it were.  It’s much harder to stop a speeding train than when it’s still in the station.  An earlier revelation, with better investigation, would have sunk Kavanaugh much more certainly than a last-minute gambit.
3. Timing really is irrelevant.  Early or late in the process, if he did it, it should be known.  If he lied about it under oath, that should be known, too.  The GOP would have squawked about it no matter when the revelations were made known.  Had Feinstein come in early with Dr. Ford, they would simply have said that the Democrats had planned at attack on Kavanaugh the moment he was picked.  
5. Mitch McConnell made it clear that he was going to confirm Kavanaugh no matter what.  He didn’t care what might be discovered about the nominee’s fitness for the court.  He made it clear that he only gave time for the sham testimony because to not do so would look bad, and he was absolutely clear that it was utterly meaningless.  So is the FBI investigation which was only performed in a perfunctory manner (more on that anon).  The only reasons why things got complicated for the GOP are: 
1. Ford’s remarkably gent, calm, and compelling testimony.  Everyone could tell she was being honest.
2. Kavanaugh’s vitriolic, rambling, abusive, unprofessional performance that took even some GOP senators by surprise.  This guy had no self-control.
3. Jeff Flake’s encounter with some abuse survivors in the hallway.  They forced him to listen to them, and it was after this that he called for an FBI investigation.  He and he alone decided this for himself.  No Democrat could have done that.
6. It WAS political to tie the hands of the FBI in its investigation.  The president tried to limit the investigation to four witnesses.  The GOP wanted to have (and got) a very short investigation that could hardly include many witnesses or any thorough questioning.  It was a sham.  To be given less than a week — an artificial time frame, once again — is all about politics and not one whit about justice.
7. It is not the Democrats who lived Brett Kavanaugh’s life.  It’s not them who drank excessively, who was, according to many who knew him, not only a mean drunk but a groper.  It’s not them who practiced their testimony at the White House for days before sitting before the Judiciary Committee.  He is the one who came into that testimony with guns a’blazing.  He’s the one who launched into all out partisan attacks on the senators themselves.  Oh, and for some reason launched into an attack on the Clintons (which I guess is mandatory for any Republican in public life these days).  He is the one who lied under oath about his sexual exploits (Devil’s Triangle a drinking game?  Please!). He’s the one who lied under oath about his drinking to excess and to blackout stage.  He’s the one who was belligerent on national TV - something you never want to see in a Supreme Court justice.  And now, it comes out that he apparently began coordinating smear campaigns on potential witnesses months before they even came forward (there are emails to prove it).  Which is to say that he knew he was dirty from the beginning — as did the GOP — and they all chose to hide it because you know, ethics don’t matter.
8. Had Judge Kavanaugh simply said up front that he had been a jerk, things might have been different.  Had he simply admitted that he had been a heavy drinker, that he had blackouts, that he might have done something regrettable while intoxicated, people might have understood.  If he had said that he had no recollection of being sexually aggressive and was horrified at the idea that he might have been, if he had said that was a stage of his life that he looked back on with embarrassment and regret, and that he had changed dramatically, he might not have had this extra drama.  If he had said he promised to work hard to ensure that no woman would ever have to fear for her safety, at least not when it came to coming forward with an accusation, and that he would work to make sure every sexual abuse victim received real justice, then maybe this whole fiasco would have been avoided.  Maybe.

Frankly, as I said up front, I have no doubt he will be confirmed and sitting on the bench by Monday.  But this confirmation hearing has awakened a genie the GOP can not stuff back into the bottle.  It is my guess that the number of women who vote this midterm is be much higher than in the past.  That the backlash will be fierce.  Yes, they will get their justice, and yes, it will harm this country — women, working stiffs, the democratic process.  Yes, it will drive us further away from the freedom we once claimed to be founded upon.  But there’s only so much you can do without being turned back or resorting to violence against your own people.  And while I have no doubts that Donald Trump wouldn’t think twice about firing upon American protesters, I do think we still have enough honest people in the government and military that we won’t reach that point.  

Which is to say, the electorate will come for the GOP.  Again, and again, and again.