Kavanaugh and Perjury

[_Chap]

I doubt very much that half the men in the country, let alone half the adults in the country, think it is a recommendation if someone gets into drunken fights in bars.

Who said it was a recommendation?

He was in a college bar fight? That just makes me like him, actually. Now he's relatable to half the country.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Chap,

I'll try asking again, and then hopefully you'll apologize for being wrong. Who said it was a recommendation?

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

Why? Neil Gorsuch didn't experience any of this. Either Democrats decided to hold off the dogs and not pay people to lie about him... or maybe, just maybe, Gorsuch never sexually assaulted anyone before.

It's timing, and the fact that a President can't really be fought over having one pick for the Supreme Court. He was nominated at the front end of Trump's Presidency. Also, this:



Tilting Supreme Court to the Right is a HUGE legacy issue for Trump, who hopefully is a one-term President.

- Doc

Well these kinds of theories rest on the assumption that the people coming forward are just paid pawns by the Democratic party. I think that's absurd. Ford is credible. She's not making this up. And the longer this drags out the more we find out what a lying piece of crap Kavanaugh truly is. I don't have a problem with the timing and I think the explanation for that is perfectly reasonable and typical of sexual assault victims. They don't want their attackers to be praised as exceptional members of society.

Trump could tilt the court to the Right by simply nominating someone else with less baggage, probably a Mormon. Democrats may consider laying back on Kavanaugh and they try to impeach him later as more details come out. That way they have a chance of replacing him with one of their own.

[_Gunnar]

The more I learn about this man and his dissembling, and about what his contemporary fellow students are saying about him, the more incredible it seems to me that even the Republican Senators would seriously want to confirm him. Besides that, the man himself is doing more to hurt his own credibility than almost anyone else!

[Guest]

Democrats may consider laying back on Kavanaugh and they try to impeach him later as more details come out. That way they have a chance of replacing him with one of their own.

If he eventually proves to be so corrupt that there is a plausible probability that he could be successfully impeached and convicted, maybe that would turn out to be the best outcome.

If he is rejected for good cause, or eventually impeached after becoming a Justice, I am deeply sorry and saddened about how that will affect his family, who are certainly innocent bystanders in this whole affair.

[_Chap]

Chap,

I'll try asking again, and then hopefully you'll apologize for being wrong. Who said it was a recommendation?

- Doc

You did not use the word 'recommendation', certainly. I did not say that you did.

You did however say:

He was in a college bar fight? That just makes me like him, actually. Now he's relatable to half the country.

And I think most reasonable people would take that as you saying that being in a bar fight would count in his favour with a lot of people. So, being like you and relatable to half the country is in your view not a recommendation? OK ... weird, but I accept that's the way you think.

[_Some Schmo]

by the way, in the interest of fairness and honesty, I have to admit that I found the parts of Swetnick's interview a little dubious. She strikes me as not being entirely honest herself. It would be nice if someone came forward to corroborate her story.

Just an intuition, but compared to Ford, she was not nearly as compelling to me.

[_EAllusion]

Doc - A big problem I have with your line of argument from a strategic standpoint is that the Democrats were doing all the things you argue they should be doing prior to the sexual assault allegation coming out and Kavanaugh was going to sail to confirmation anyway. This was so ineffective, in fact, that you speak as though you aren't even aware that it already occurred. Kavanaugh already had a history of serious temperament questions, lying, and dubiously concealed political behavior that the Democrats were trying to highlight. All this most recent series of stories did was magnify and confirm much of what was already established on that front. This isn't to criticize Democrats, because they are playing with a nothing hand. Republicans can do whatever they want. All Democrats can do is put public pressure on them ahead of an election.

Post-Ford, Kavanaugh's numbers have sunk a bit, Democratic fundraising from individual donors skyrocketed, and for the first time there was some possibility that this partisan operative wasn't going to get his seat which might be construed as a positive even if he's replaced by someone with similar ideological views. General polling seems unmoved, but it's still early and it's really hard to tease out small effects from the noise. If you looking at this from an electioneering point of view, which I don't recommend, it's hard not to see this as a positive for Democrats. Republicans who sincerely believe this is somehow a win are way into their own BS.

Water Dog is correct that never Trumpers really do like Kavanaugh, though that's because he's a standard elite Republican and never Trumper's are a tiny group of overwhelmingly elite conservatives with an outsized voice in the media. Collectively, Kavanaugh was their guy well before this story broke. Water Dog wants to imply that this is winning them over to MAGA or whatever, which misunderstands what they're about.

[_Kevin Graham]

For perspective, this was Merrick Garland's yearbook entry:



Here is Neil Gorsuch’s yearbook entry:

President of the Yard, Student Government: English Class Representative 1, Border Council Member 2; Executive Council Member 3; Forensics 1, 2, 3 (National Champion), 4 (Vice President); International Relations Club 2 (CO-founder), 3 (Vice President), 4 (President of O.A.S.); Dramatics 2 (The Odd Couple); How to win by a landslide 3, 4; YES 4; “Lousy Spanish Student” 2, 3, 4; Facism Forever President (Founder and President) 1, 2, 3, 4; Believer in The World According to Ward; Committee to reform The Beast (President) 2, 3, 4; “The carrousel ride is over” (or is it?) 4; I am not an alkie; I never wrote a debate case!

The highlighted portion was said to be a joke.

[_EAllusion]

The real victory for Democrats, I think, is that if Kavanaugh gets confirmed, which looks reasonably likely at this point, then it's going to taint 5-4 conservative decisions out of the Supreme Court. Democratic voters have been quite naïve about the importance of the Supreme Court and for whatever reason don't understand just how conservative it has been for a while, but this is very likely to make them be more like Republicans in viewing it as an unaccountable super-legislature of political activists.

This is especially true of when Roe vs. Wade is either overturned or (more likely in my mind) crippled to the point that it is moot. That's a significant political victory and will provide them cover and motive for Constitutional hardball to retake the courts. It's a worrying development for the health of our democracy, but Democrats are left with no realistic alternative. It all goes back to the Garland block. That was such a toxic thing to do.