The Carpentariat

This is big: Rosenstein splits

From 18 minutes ago, via Axios:

"Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has verbally resigned to Chief of Staff John Kelly in anticipation of being fired by President Trump, according to a source with direct knowledge. Per a second source with direct knowledge: 'He’s expecting to be fired,' so he plans to step down."

He should have waited to be fired. Same difference, really, but Trump will use his resignation as a defense, naturally. What happens from here is anyone's guess — one I'll have to think about before pontificating.

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Update: The NY Times reports that "It was not immediately clear whether he expected to be fired by Mr. Trump or whether he planned to resign…. [O]ver the weekend, Mr. Rosenstein called a White House official and said he was considering quitting, and a person close to the White House said he was resigning" — which, unquestionably, is the position the WH will take, no matter the truth, as always.  

The Times adds: "It was also unclear whether Mr. Trump would accept a resignation that would likely thrust the administration into further turmoil just weeks before November’s midterm elections." I would add, unnecessarily, that turmoil has never been a barrier to Trump's decision-making. As a practical matter, though, he'll never get a newly appointed deputy attorney general confirmed by the Senate before the midterms — after which, the Democratic House will be free to investigate and publicize every sordid tick-tock of this volatile affair.  

It seems to me the important point to be made — again — is that the earlier, reputedly explosive NYT story on Rosenstein's secret maneuverings was, in itself, of little import. Trump was sure to fire him after the midterms (therefore, we must ask, is this story actually that big?) — or otherwise find a way to get at Bob Mueller — thus, in the long run, the Times' journalistic intervention will have had no real influence on Trump's dirty dealings.      

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Journalistic mayhem.

While the Washington Post is reporting that "Rosenstein has told White House officials he is willing to resign," NBC News' Pete Williams is reporting that the Justice Department insists that Rosenstein will have to be fired — he ain't leavin' by a jet plane, or in any other voluntary manner.

(Correction: My mistake. The Post quote is drawn from a White House source, which means it's a lie.) 

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The Last Word?

From Reuters: "Rod Rosenstein has not resigned and is still serving as U.S. deputy attorney general."

On the other hand, from Politico's Breaking News (emailed): "Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will meet Thursday," meaning that just before, during, and whereupon the journalistic chaos will resume. 

 

The Fabian peril

From the ever-quotable Ben Carson, speaking at the ever-panicky Values Voter Summit last Friday:

"If you really understand the big picture of what's going on, then what's going on with Kavanaugh will make perfectly good sense to you. There've been people in this country for a very long time, going all the way back to the Fabians, people who've wanted to fundamentally change this country [because] they don't like what America is and what it represents, and they want to change us to another system."

The, uh, the who? The Fabians? I haven't heard of them since undergrad school, probably because in the United States the Fabians are now, and always have been, essentially nonexistent. Fabian socialism was a powerful, fin de siècle intellectual force in Britain, whose adherents included such luminaries as H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and Oscar Wilde. I once regarded myself as something of a Fabian, and I suppose I still do. Its original emphasis was on an intellectual cadre leading incremental, democratic change in society — a perfectly elitist, infinitely snobbish concept, which of course appealed to me. We need more elitism in this horrendously pedestrian country, not less. (Fabians are still around, by the way, as an influence on the Labour Party.)

But how did Ben Carson ever come to know about Fabian socialism? That's what puzzles. He said it's a part of American socialist forces which have "completely lost control off the deep end," and he said that with no noticeable irony. Someone must have said something about Fabianism on Fox News, which no doubt left its audience in equally pained puzzlement.

Incidentally, if the belief in changing "us to another system" in any way includes ridding ourselves of Trumpian authoritarianism, then there are indeed tens of millions of Fabians in the United States.

 

Kavanaugh is going down - with a thump

As I wrote last Friday, my money is on Brett Kavanaugh remaining as a sitting but severely wounded judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. But I'm beginning to think that Mitch McConnell's fantasy-come-true might be preferable. "In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court," he said to a coven of right-wing activists last week.

I rather like the ring of that, in terms of this: Why not add yet another albatross to Republicans' hopes in and around 2020? More on this in a moment.

As is typical of sexual assault or misconduct allegations, where there is one, there are likely to be others. So now comes Deborah Ramirez, a Yale classmate of Kavanaugh, who has told The New Yorker that "she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away." A real class act, this Brett, assuming Ramirez's recollection is anywhere close to accurate. "Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident," reports the magazine. "I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted," she said of any sane confirmation hearing.

The New Yorker further reports that several Democratic senators were recently clued into Ramirez's story, and that "senior Republican staffers also learned of the allegation last week and," in a bobby-dazzler of understatement, "expressed concern about its potential impact on Kavanaugh’s nomination." Republicans' cognitive powers are nothing, however, compared to their proclivity to always sink ethically lower. "Soon after," continues The New Yorker, "Senate Republicans issued renewed calls to accelerate the timing of a committee vote."

Not to be omitted from the headlines, Stormy Daniels' attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted yesterday that "I represent a woman with credible information regarding Judge Kavanaugh and Mark Judge." The Washington Post reports that his client's information concerns "misconduct by Kavanaugh in high school." Odds are, more such clients there will be.

So why — although I'm now convinced we'll not see them — do I believe in the virtues of a Kavanaugh confirmation? As I suggested above, the man would be sheer, political dead weight on the highest bench. But more than that, he'd be an unrelenting migraine throughout the Republican Party.

This year, Kavanaugh is bad enough for the GOP, as the NY Times succinctly reiterates: "Many women furious over President Trump’s attacks on Dr. Blasey, a Supreme Court nomination that was once seen as a political winner in many conservative-leaning states could, instead, rouse female voters and independents who otherwise may have cared little about the confirmation fight." For Republicans, it could get worse. Much worse.

Yesterday, on CNN's "State of the Union," Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono observed that Maryland (the scene of Kavanaugh's misconduct, as reported by Dr. Blasey) — "has lifted the statute of limitations on criminal prosecutions of most forms of sexual abuse, adding that 'there may be an investigation along those lines.'"

Hence, going into the 2020 elections, Justice Kavanaugh could be facing impeachment charges of perjury, or sexual abuse, or both. And of course an outside criminal trial would only seal his doom. Not even eternally shameless Republican pols could protect a sitting Justice facing criminal prosecution. So at the top of the Republican ticket in 2020 would be a serial sexual assailant who had appointed a like-behaved jurist; much of what's left of women's GOP vote would flee across the aisle; many among the president's current congressional allies would join the women; already possessing the House, Democrats would be well positioned to capture the Senate in an even more violent blue wave; and Trump, naturally, in mortifying fits of characteristic self-degradation, would go right on degrading as well this land's highest office.

Do I believe Kavanaugh will indeed face a run-up to impeachment, causing political shockwaves throughout the next two years? No. Because I believe instead that Republicans will cut him loose within the next couple weeks.

 

I believe I always owe you an explanation for any absences, since this is a reader-supported site.

Same story, actually. Somehow I dehydrated Friday evening (notwithstanding rather abundant fluid intake), which is characterized by severe diarrhea and extreme fatigue. (This might be a lifetime condition, in that I'm missing my colon and part of my small intestine, both of which once absorbed water; thus dehydration always haunts.) I fought going to the ER till Sunday afternoon, when my daughter came and whipped me into reason. So off I went, for two bags of IV fluid. I had the option of staying overnight for a slow IV, but I declined. With luck and the two bags of fluid, I'll be better by Monday morning. Lord I hope so. See you in the morning?

 

Today

A bit of a rough day. I'll be back tomorrow. I will leave you, however, with one quick thought about the Rosenstein blowup, which I had planned on expanding on this morning. And my thought is this:

The left is overreacting. Trump was bound to fire Rosenstein anyway, sooner or later, and this blowup only means sooner, probably. The timing could actually be beneficial to the left: Just before the midterms? Bring it on, Donald.

At any rate, I think that's what the left is overlooking in it's outrage about the NYT story: the inescapable fact that Trump would fire Rosenstein at one time or another, so the story itself is a rather minor affair. If anything, the NYT story may hasten Trump's fall.      

 

Rod Rosenstein's heroic 2017 thinking

It has been a few hours since the last one (take your pick), thus a fresh scandal has come to light in the news: the deputy attorney general plotted in the spring of 2017 to first secretly record, and then methodically oust, the hopelessly feckless president of the United States, via the 25th Amendment. That, according to the New York Times.

Rod Rosenstein's surreptitious taping of Trump was meant to "expose the chaos consuming the administration," as the Times puts it, while his invocation of the 25th Amendment reflected just how profoundly "unfit" Trump was, and remains, for the presidency.

To Rosenstein (and millions of others), evidence of the administration's free-fall into strife and anarchy was both ubiquitous and chilling. The Times economically depicts the widespread breakdown of presidential governance: "Trump’s firing of James B. Comey as F.B.I. director plunged the White House into turmoil"; "the president [had] divulged classified intelligence to Russians in the Oval Office"; "revelations emerged that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to pledge loyalty and end an investigation into a senior aide"; "Rosenstein" witnessed little but "tumult"; "the hiring process [for a new F.B.I. director] was emblematic of broader dysfunction stemming from the White House," and "both the process and the administration itself were in disarray."

Hence Rosenstein's desire to get at least some of it on tape, and then ease, or dynamite, Trump out of office. Yet according to one person who was there when Rosenstein raised the idea of a wire, he was merely being "sarcastic." And Rosenstein has denounced the NYT story as "inaccurate and factually incorrect."

NYT reporter Matt Apuzzo, who contributed to, but did not write, the Rosenstein story, appeared this afternoon in an MSNBC interview. And there he made an indispensable remark. To paraphrase him, it matters little (if at all) whether the deputy attorney general was being serious or sarcastic. What does matter is that even Rosenstein's gallows humor — if that's what it was — was a grievous sign of an administration in absolute shambles.

Everywhere he looked he saw turmoil, confusion, corruption, possible treason and unmistakable deceit. Rosenstein had every reason to plan secret recordings and ponder the beginnings of the 25th Amendment unleashed. None of this will end well for Trump, but far more important is that meanwhile, it's the American people who will suffer.

For now, though, Mr. Rosenstein had best start mailing out his résumé.

 

The Washington Post asks a spectacularly puzzling question

"Fairness left the GOP long ago. Is decency gone, too?"

That's the title of Eugene Robinson's latest, and I find it immensely perplexing.

After Watergate; after the Reagan administration's demagogic assault on "welfare queens" and its butchering of fiscal stability; after the unspeakably offensive Gingrich Revolution of '94, led by the eponymous unspeakability himself; after the George W. Bush administration's further butchering of fiscal sanity and its launching of a costly and unprovoked war; and after the rise of the bigoted, ignorant, cryptofascistic lump of inhumanity known as Donald J. Trump — after all that, can we still ask if decency is gone from the Republican Party? Seriously?

That, anyway, is what a Washington Post headline writer asked. Robinson was a trifle more judicious: "By now, we should know not to expect fairness from this Republican leadership…. But we must at least demand basic decency — which, in this case, means giving Ford’s allegation the hearing it deserves."

We are, of course, always free to demand it. We're also free to demand that the president read a briefing paper now and then, which, just as obviously, he'll never do, what with all those tweets he has waiting to be viciously conceived and malevolently sent.

So, yes, by all means, demand some decency from the GOP. Just keep in mind that decency is something the Grand Old Party jettisoned decades ago; with it, it wouldn't be the foul, godawful party it is today.

Decency will have to be imposed by outside forces: Senate Democrats, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, perhaps a few inquisitive FBI agents, the press, political activists, principled commentators. Decency will have to be grabbed by the ears and shoved down the throats of Senate Republicans, with them gagging all the way. Decency must, in short, be a wholly non-GOP entry in this concluding chapter of a Court nomination gone miserably sour.

 

Our pubescent president

You have to love the juxtaposition of these Political Wire stories. First up:

And then, just three stories later:

Indeed:

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It's more than a bit frightening to know that the president of the United States has the impulse control of a 16-year-old.

 

A surprising take on Kavanaugh

At least one person is (surprisingly) convinced that Brett Kavanaugh is guilty as charged by Christine Blasey Ford.

It's just a shame that a person like Judge Kavanaugh who has a stellar record — that somebody can bring something up that he did as a teenager close to 40 years ago. That's not relevant. We've got to look at a person's life and what they've done as an adult and are they qualified for this position so this is just an attempt to smear him. I hope the Senate is smarter than this and they're not going to let this stop the process from moving forward and confirming this man…. There wasn't a crime committed. These are two teenagers and it's obvious that she said no and he respected it and walked away.

—Franklin Graham, whom the Christian Broadcasting Network humorously describes as an evangelist and "humanitarian." If Graham is a humanitarian, then I'm an evangelist.

 

Of Kavanaugh, mistaken identities, a woman's skirt, and religious hypocrisy

Now here's a novel approach. Christine Blasey Ford was assaulted in that hellish Maryland bedroom years ago, but not by Brett Kavanaugh. This entire ordeal is simply a matter of mistaken identity. So suggests Ed Whelan, friend of Kavanaugh, supporter of Kavanaugh, coworker with Kavanaugh, and a buddy of "the head of the Federalist Society who has been helping to spearhead the nomination."

Who was the real attacker? asks this sleuthing Perry Mason of Twitter. A boy by the name of Chris Garrett, a Kavanaugh classmate, answers Whelan. (Garrett now teaches at a middle school, or he will until the school's administration sacks him because of Whelan's speculation.)

As the NY Times relates, a letter from Ford's attorneys "strongly suggested that it would be offensive to assert that she would not remember who pinned her down to a bed, groped her, tried to take her clothing off and covered her mouth to keep her from screaming at that party in the 1980s." Late yesterday, Ford herself said "There is zero chance that I would confuse" Kavanaugh for Garrett. One would think, wouldn't one.

Meanwhile, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have been interviewing outside lawyers — all of whom have a vagina, and one of whom would do all the questioning of Ford, as the committee's 11 Republican senators line up and hide behind her skirt. "It could help with [the] optics issue," says the Washington Post. But I'm not so sure. Would not the cowardice displayed by these quivering he-men of conservative righteousness dominate the coverage?

Also in the news is the evangelical community, which, reports the Times, is "expressing frustration that Senate Republicans and the White House are not protecting Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh more forcefully … and warning that conservative voters may stay home in November if his nomination falls apart." This line is especially rich: "[Republicans need to] do more to defend Judge Kavanaugh from what they say is a desperate Democratic ploy to prevent President Trump from filling future court vacancies."

Where were evangelical leaders when desperate Republicans were preventing President Obama from executing his constitutional duty to fill a Supreme Court vacancy? The deafening hypocrisy of Republican pols is bad enough; but that which comes from those who claim to represent God's charity is just downright sickening.

The saving grace will come when divine Democratic ploys are successful in keeping Kavanaugh off the bench. Which, if I had to bet, will indeed materialize. If you're one of the blessed many who recently contributed to this site, you may have your money back if I'm wrong.

 

My thanks to all you readers who pitched in and helped out during this week's fundraising campaign. This site is not possible without you — and you came through. I owe you a debt of thanks. Now, happy reading, till next spring.  

 

The GOP's quackery has run its course

Before the Kavanaugh hearings are over, we'll all need a vomit bag. Indeed, we've been in need of one for some time.

Sens. Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Orrin Hatch and other colossal Republican hypocrites are in heat to confirm Brett Kavanaugh within a week or so, presumably because the country can't wait for that ninth Court seat to be filled. Yet when Justice Anthony Scalia breathed his last breath, Republicans rebuffed President Obama's Merrick Garland nomination for more than a year.

"The people," you see, needed to vote in a national election before these exceptionally conscientious senators could possibly pass judgment on any Supreme Court nomination. They needed the people's imprimatur, don't you know, as only a national election could provide. Well, the next election occurs in only 47 days — a trifle less than one year, 53 days — yet now Kavanaugh's confirmation can't wait, even though, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey, "only 31 percent of U.S. adults polled said they were in favor of Kavanaugh’s appointment."

So much for the people's approval.

Meanwhile, as Republicans hustle the story that this is merely a matter of she said, he said, a high school classmate of Kavanaugh's female accuser has corroborated her story. From NBC News: "Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me," wrote Cristina Miranda King in a Facebook post. "I did not know her personally but I remember her. This incident did happen. Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details. However Christine's vivid recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true."

The FBI is rather good at digging up the truth about such things, but Judiciary Chairman Grassley prefers that the bureau not be bothered. He's a considerate sort of guy. So is our eternally befuddled, pathologically mendacious president. "I don’t think the FBI really should be involved, because they don’t want to be involved," said Trump on Tuesday. "If they wanted to be, I would certainly do that, but as you know, they say this is not really their thing."

Only because, as you know, the president hasn't asked them to do it.

The paradox of all this is that Republican pols rely on this country's absolutely dumbest voters to keep them in office, and their reliance on mass stupidity has worked brilliantly. Never before has a U.S. political party gained universal power by offering up nothing but universal humbug; the closest similarity was Southern firebrands in the antebellum era, but their cause was nationally hopeless before it was methodically launched. The contemporary GOP, on the other hand, has made heroic, unprecedented strides in the political science of stellar humbuggery.

Its cause has been the dupery of every unschooled voter in the nation — and there are millions of them — from Maine to Florida, from Virginia to somewhere short of the knows-better West Coast. Indirectly the party has hired the sleazy likes of Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham to bamboozle the rubes about immigrant rapists, religious bigotry and endless tax cuts for the affluent — all for the rubes' benefit. The rubes, being rubes, fell for it, but even Republican hucksters never imagined the sales job could be so easy.

Meanwhile, the nation's majority has sat back and watched in horror as GOP charlatanism has unfolded, in policy after train-wreck policy. That's been the problem: Too often the majority electorate has done just that — sat back, and nothing more. But, finally, they are reaching for vomit bags. Next up, they and Jesus are coming, and boy are they pissed. The Kavanaugh kerfuffle is simply the last in a long line of straws. 

 

The witless wisdom of Donald Trump

Our president, in a video shot yesterday:

"This is a tough hurricane, one of the wettest we’ve ever seen from the standpoint of water."

Yes, and I just stepped outside and it was really hot from the standpoint of heat.

Also yesterday, in an interview with Hill TV:

"If I did one mistake with [FBI Director James] Comey, I should have fired him before I got here. I should have fired him right after the convention."

The Washington Post treats this with utmost decorum, writing that Trump firing Comey as a mere presidential candidate was "an option that was not actually available to him."

 

Sorry. Having a few bumps in Typepad's road to great blogging. 

 

A surprising recommendation

In "I Believe Her," Atlantic's 56-year-old contributing writer Caitlan Flanagan relates a heartrending tale of her own terrifying, Christine Blasey Ford experience.

[A "good-looking senior' in high school] had tried to rape me during a date that I was very excited to have been asked on, and his attempt was so serious—and he was so powerful—that for a few minutes, I was truly fighting him off.

The boy eventually apologized to the stunningly forgiving Ms. Flanagan. Which got her to thinking about what's missing from the current controversy.

I [had] been entirely agnostic about Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination…. [But] if Ford’s story is true, Brett Kavanaugh never apologized. He never tried to make amends, never took responsibility for what he did…. If it is true, we’ll have to decide whether you get to attack a girl, show no remorse, and eventually become a Supreme Court justice. My own inclination is: No.

I mention this story of self-reflection, forgiveness and judgment not because it confirms Ms. Ford's allegation of Kavanaugh's gross misconduct. I doubt there's anything that could, absolutely, do that. Nonetheless I happen to believe Ms. Ford; dated materials, as Ms. Flanagan points outs, corroborates her story — her two therapists' notes are indeed pieces of persuasion in the she-said, he-said preponderance of scanty evidence.

Rather I mention this story because I ran across it in what I thought was a most confounding way. That is, on Twitter, there was this from … David Brooks:

I don't know if Brooks was merely trying to keep his ideological distance from all things Trump, or if he has grown more latitudinarian in his conservatism, or if he just likes to keep us guessing. Whichever it was, I was glad to see him join the thinking.

 

We should term-limit the Court

Political scientist Lee Drutman, writing for Vox, proposes an excellent remedy for the madness of today's headlines:

"Here’s a simple idea to dial down some of the destructive warfare of the Supreme Court confirmation process: term limits for Supreme Court justices.

"The idea of term limits for Supreme Court justices (10, 12, or 18 years are the most common proposals) has been floating around for decades. But the increasingly contentious nature of the confirmation process should give this proposal new urgency."

More important than tamping down the "destructive warfare" of hearings, which, at any rate, is temporary, is that term limits would obviate the long-term judicial poison of appointments made by simpletons or madmen such as Trump. The mossbacks Neil Gorsuch and, perhaps, Brett Kavanaugh could serve on the bench for decades to come. Neither Justice reflects the fundamental attitudes of the American public today, but 30 years from now they'll be totally out of touch with contemporary America. (FDR could attest to the torments of having a 19th-century Court rule on 20th-century issues.)

In 1983, now-Chief Justice John Roberts made this argument in another way: "Setting a term of, say, 15 years would ensure that federal judges would not lose all touch with reality through decades of ivory tower existence." Drutman also quotes Mike Huckabee, in a rare moment of lucidity: "Nobody should be in an unelected position for life. If the president who appoints them can only serve eight years, the person they appoint should never serve 40."

Drutman notes the public's support as well. According to a 2017 Reuters poll, 66 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of Republicans were on board for 10-year term limits.

Writes David Leonhardt of the NY Times: "The current system began, obviously, in the 18th century, when both politics and human lifespans were very different. It’s time for a change."

I don't know about politics being "very different" in the 18th century; the election of 1796, between Jefferson and Adams, was as rough and tumble as they get. As for lifespans and expectancies? Statistics of the 18th century are a matter of debate, but the website populationeducation.org reports that "life expectancy was below 40," however "the average lifespan of the 56 signers to the Declaration of Independence was 66 years." So even for the affluent (who had a better diet and, often, country estates with which to escape city plagues), lifespans were significantly lower than today. Brett Kavanaugh, for one, could live to 105.

So yes, it is time for a Constitutional change.

 

Trump: Still causing throw-ups all over the land

Especially in the wake of Republicans' unforgivable stiff-arming of President Obama and Judge Merrick Garland, this sort of trash talk is also especially offensive:

"It’s a terrible thing that took place, it’s frankly a terrible thing that this [Kavanaugh] information wasn’t given to us a long time ago — months ago, when they got it," said that horror of a little president to reporters this morning in the Oval Office. "They could have done that, instead of waiting till everything was finished and then scream. But that’s what the Democrats do; it’s obstruction, it’s resistance, it’s whatever you have to do."

To be fair to Trump, though — as clueless as he is, he might not even be aware of what his Republican Congress did to Obama's Supreme Court nomination.

 

Trump's base - out to lunch

An uproariously funny story by Josh Green:

"A private survey conducted for the Republican National Committee and obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek contains alarming news for Republicans hoping to hold on to control of Congress in November: Most Trump supporters don’t believe there’s a threat that Democrats will win back the House. President Trump’s boasts that a 'red wave' could increase Republican majorities appear to have lulled GOP voters into complacency, raising the question of whether they’ll turn up at the polls….

"The report urges GOP officials to yank their voters back to reality: 'We need to make real the threat that Democrats have a good shot of winning control of Congress.'"

Which, in a more perfect world, should make at least "soft Republicans" happy, since the policies they "care about most," finds the RNC report, "are ones involving government spending and are typically associated with Democrats. The survey found that increasing funding for veterans’ mental health services, strengthening and preserving Medicare and Social Security, and reforming the student loan system all scored higher than Trump’s favored subjects of tax cuts, border security, and preserving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency."

There is — no surprise — a correlation in the report between delusional thinking and rabid support of Trump: "Fully half of self-identified Republicans don’t believe Democrats are likely to win back the House. And within that group, 57 percent of people who describe themselves as strong Trump supporters don’t believe Democrats have a chance."

Let's keep it that, shall we?

 

Prof. Hill squanders smart advice on Republicans

In a NY Times op-ed, Anita Hill writes that "the 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee must demonstrate a clear understanding that sexual violence is a social reality to which elected representatives must respond."

Responsibly, that is. But it won't. Because the Senate Judiciary Committee is a Republican committee.

If anyone is qualified to advise the Senate on how to conduct a sexual-harassment hearing in 2018, it is 1991's Anita Hill. She took a public beating at the hands of the Judiciary Committee nearly 30 years ago, which permitted the nomination of the smarmy Clarence Thomas to go forward.

To prevent another miscarriage of justice in the "woke" age, Hill suggests two principal means of greater fairness. One, the committee should "Select a neutral investigative body with experience in sexual misconduct cases that will investigate the incident in question and present its findings to the committee," and two, "Do not rush these hearings."

Naturally, Chairman Chuck Grassley's Republican-controlled committee intends to do neither.

Are we surprised?

 

Kavanaugh, hanging by a robe's thread

Trump lauded Brett Kavanaugh yesterday as "one of the finest people that anybody has known," which isn't much of a compliment, since Trump also believes that among white nationalists, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klanners there are "very fine people."

Less upbeat was Mitch McConnell, who said "Now, at the 11th hour, with committee votes on schedule after Democrats have spent weeks and weeks searching for any possible reason that the nomination should be delayed — now, now they choose to introduce this allegation" against Trump's very fine person.

They can't help themselves, these Republicans. They just cannot help but lie. Democrats didn't choose now to introduce Christine Blasey Ford's allegation at the eleventh hour. Ms. Ford did. And by doing so, she has wrangled a public hearing out of everybody's life of the party, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck "Lampshade" Grassley.

The Washington Post summarizes why McConnell is so unhappy: "The hearing sets up a public spectacle that Senate Republican leaders had been hoping to avoid 50 days before midterm elections in which their majority in both chambers is at risk and female voters are energized about casting ballots." That sets up Republican defections, such as Maine's Susan Collins: "Obviously, if Judge Kavanaugh has lied about what happened, that would be disqualifying."

At least Sen. Collins seems to understand what's on trial here, so to speak. Monday's public hearings, at which both Ford and Kavanaugh will testify, is less a question of what happened decades ago than whether the Court-nominated judge is lying about it now.

Since Ms. Ford is eminently credible, with documents to support her story, all Kavanaugh can do is deny the allegation of sexual assault. That's not much of a defense, but it's the potential offense that could prove politically explosive. "If [Senate] Republicans set out to smear a sexual assault survivor to steamroll Kavanaugh through," says Executive director of Demand Justice and former Hillary spokesman Brian Fallon, "it will only further repel suburban women voters, who are already powering the November wave."

It's not 1991. The public, especially women, will no longer stand for a committee assault on the aggrieved. So, it's advantage, Ford, while screwed is Brett Kavanaugh.