Unsubstantiated allegations, screaming protesters and media bias is the new norm.
Via NRO:
You no doubt recall that during the 2012 presidential campaign, then-Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid accused Mitt Romney of having not paid any taxes over the past decade. It wasn’t true; Romney released tax returns showing that it wasn’t true. In 2015, CNN’s Dana Bash pressed him about telling a blatant lie, Reid responded,“Romney didn’t win, did he?”
That is the only lesson anyone in politics is going to take from everything surrounding the Kavanaugh confirmation.
Did the last-minute leak of Christine Blasey Ford’s name and accusation help Kavanaugh opponents win?
Did the New Yorker article that began with a lurid accusation, but that halfway through admitted could not confirm Kavanaugh’s attendance at the party at the center of the accusation, help Kavanaugh opponents win?
Did the implausible claims of Julie Swetnick, released and publicized by Michael Avenatti, help Kavanaugh opponents win?
Did fundraising off of the Kavanaugh accusations help Kavanaugh opponents win?
Did a U.S. senator telling all men in America to “shut up and step up” help Kavanaugh opponents win?
This is binary. Either these efforts derailed the nomination, or they didn’t.
There is no circumstance where everyone involved with those norm-breaking steps suddenly wakes up, has a crisis of conscience, and realizes that they were morally wrong. The only way they decide not to take similar steps in the future is if they conclude that those steps are not effective.
If these sorts of tactics work, we will get more of them. Right now, Kavanaugh could be a squish who wimps out on Roe vs. Wade and I’d still want him on that court, because this isn’t really about him anymore. This is about what kind of proof is needed before you believe a man is a monster. This is about whether decades of respected public and private life can be wiped away by an allegation without supporting witnesses. This is about whether anyone who ever knew you at any chapter of your life can suddenly come forward and paint you as a malevolent deviant of every kind . . . or whether people who never knew you at any chapter of your life can suddenly come forward and paint you as a malevolent deviant of every kind.
Make no mistake, this whole public discussion would be completely different if P. J. Smyth had said, “Well, I remember the party, but I don’t know what happened when the three of them were upstairs.” Or if Leland Keyser had said, “Yes, I remember the party, but I had no idea what happened in that room after they turned up the music.” If Ford remembered the date and the house, and we could go back and check property records and see whose parents owned the house, and whether her description of the house matches the floor plan . . . this would be a different conversation.
But as it is, we have a denial — and three named witnesses who do not corroborate that the party ever occurred, much less an assault. Ford’s claim is just lacking in specifics enough that no alibi can ever be created. For example, if Ford said this occurred on, say, any of the last three weekends in 1982, we would be able to go back and see Kavanaugh’s calendar and attempt to verify the listed weekend trips to St. Michael’s in Maryland or Connecticut to visit his grandmother.