September 24, 2018
The point at which Brett Kavanaugh almost moves himself to tears: "I was focused on trying to be number 1 in my class and being captain of the varsity basketball team."
From the Fox News interview that aired just now.
ADDED: Kavanaugh (and his wife) gave a strong performance. He stuck to absolute denials, and he was asked the question I wanted to hear — did he ever drink to the point of a memory blackout — and he said he did not.
AND: There are so many things that might have made him cry, and clearly he didn't want to cry, but it provides an insight into his mind to see what was the thought that made it most difficult to maintain his composure. He'd been asked about partying and pursuing female companionship, and he was thinking about how he lived in those days. He was trying to be number 1 in his class. That meant a lot to him, and it took tremendous time and concentration. And then, the second thing, being captain of the varsity basketball team. What a good boy I was! All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!
ALSO: You'll see the whole interview. There were certain words that he repeated over and over, especially that he has always treated women with "dignity and respect" and that all he wants is "a fair process." Asked again and again to speculate about other people's motives, he always declined. He would not say anything bad about any individual. He always made it about the allegations, not the person. The person he spoke of was himself.
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221 comments:
1 – 200 of 221 Newer› Newest»“What difference at this point does it make?”
None to the Left, who frankly care not one whit if the allegations are true or not. They only care about scorched earth politics.
Maybe he wanted his wife to be proud of him.
Althouse is just doing woman-thinking. She's being played. Not an active participant except as somebody else has calculated for her.
Let me remind commenters again: Do not put extra paragraph breaks beyond a single extra space between paragraphs. Adding a couple extra breaks at the end of your comment earns deletions. I'm hardcore about this.
If the Democrats persecute him any more, he's going to end up getting Sainthood some day in the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church is a mess at the moment, but Her teachings are good. At first hard to follow, but man... it sure does keep you out of unneeded trouble.
I've said it before: what drove me bonkers was media convicting Trump of Obama's crimes.
Same thing attempted here, convict the nominee because all the Democrats in power are pedophile rapist killers, which is the only way to join the team.
Anybody know anything about gang initiations other than for Democrat leadership?
I would have preferred a more aggressive approach by BK.
But.
He has to play to Sens Collins and Murkowski -- and other squishes. So, maybe this approach gets him to squeak by.
I'll will say one thing -- I have a 17-year old in high school, playing varsity football and trying to get good grades. I doubt he'll get into Yale, but he works hard at both and doesn't have much time for anything else.
I knew two guys like Cavanaugh in college. They went on to be doctors. They were Catholic, driven and chaste. Unlike Althouse, I can relate to and appreciate Cavanagh's statement.
C'mon, Althouse, where's the mocking of a grown man crying? Several years ago you were merciless when Senator Tom Coburn was crying during a Senate speech he gave
"What a good boy I was! All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!"
I am giving you the benefit of doubt by assuming you are not being snarky. There are plenty of people like that in the world.
After I transferred to a large suburban HS, one of my best friends was like Brett Kavanaugh, but from a working class background.
He worked his ass off to finish 10th in a class of 1000+ and get an Ivy League scholarship. He drank a little on the weekends, but less than the rest of us. (We were not big drinkers).
He did homework until midnight every weeknight because he took all advanced honors classes. He did not chase girls because he did not have the time. He did not get drunk because it interfered with his scholarly work.
He joined the USN after college to learn the practical side of nuclear engineering. That is when we lost contact. He was as much of a dork as Brett Kavanaugh because he wanted to get ahead. I took a more fun path.
There is a reason we have not had a black woman on the Court (Janice Rogers Brown). This is it. She would have made a great one, but she didn't want to go through this crap.
"They only care about scorched earth politics."
Its war. This is a contest with no rules - well, one rule still, which is no violence.
The sticking point for both sides are those parts of the population not yet convinced of the true state of affairs in your politics.
That's why Kavanaugh has to defend himself. If it were fully understood by the remaining population this would be as redundant as the Sri Lankan government justifying itself during the Tamil war.
Judge Kavanaugh has seen, in case he was unaware, what the Left will do to maintain power. I hope he overturns Chevron and strips power from Leviathan State. Congress should resume its proper function and take credit/blame for what it tries to do.
I notice that Georgetown Prep is actually in Montgomery County Maryland rather than Georgetown (as I assumed)--it's a full five miles from DC. Well that makes it seem much less likely to me that the place was a drunken mess. Shows what an ignorant semi-hermit I was during high school when it came to social matters.
"Its war. This is a contest with no rules - well, one rule still, which is no violence."
-- Steve Scalise can still be reached for comment.
Some people are very driven from a young age. They have ambitions and they work hard, studying long hours. Forgoing opportunities to drink, party, and pursue the opposite sex, they stick to the straight and narrow. They have specific goals, like one day becoming an an astronaut who lands on Mars, or becoming President, or being nominated for the Supreme Court.
Basically, they're squares.
Brett Kavanaugh is basically making the argument that he was/is such a square.
Proving that irony is dead MoveOn.Org is tweeting out the need for delay and additional investigation.
Seriously, you couldn't make that up!
Ann, don’t make fun of Brett Kavanaugh. Thst’s who he was and is. He’s a good man. There are people like that.
Being number one at a Jesuit school is very difficult. You have to excel at math, science, foreign languages, English, history and theology. And all these courses are taught at a high level.
Do I sense that you're still unhappy with how much of a goody-goody Kavanaugh is/was, Professor?
Do you still wish he was a little more human and a little less saintly?
Matthew Sablan said...
"Its war. This is a contest with no rules - well, one rule still, which is no violence."
-- Steve Scalise can still be reached for comment.
Why? did something supposedly happen to him? It must have been awfully minor, or i'm sure the press would have been all over it; Like that Gabby Giffords that was executed by Sarah Palin
Did they ask him if he killed his father and married his mother?
It is unclear whether our gracious hostess understands, or cares, that the policy of "cruel neutrality" only serves to encourages lunatics to make crazier statements and stories. Normal people are incapable of putting another human being and family through this without compelling evidence just to win a tactical point. Althouse seems to find this highly entertaining. I suspect that Kavanaugh's wife and young daughters feel differently, but who cares about them? Their father is a male, after all, and you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette. To each their own I suppose.
By the way, there is no chance in Hades that this guy attempted to rape anyone.
I used to stay up to midnight doing homework in high school. It was much tougher than college.
How many times must I quote A Man For All Seasons?
Fine, I'll adulterate this one:
I am the nation's true subject, and I pray for it and all the American people. I do none harm. I say none harm. I think none harm. And if this be not enough to earn Senate approval, then in good faith, I long not serve. Nevertheless, it is not for my past actions that you have sought my blood, but because I would not bend to unfounded Constitutional views regarding abortion!!
Extraordinary. There are men who recognize and respect the dignity of women. Also, there's more in life than a friend with "benefits".
The professor's stomach was moved by Kavanaugh. But her cruel neutrality doesn't let her simply acknowedge that without a snark or two added.
There is a difference between The Reckoning and The Smear of Brett Kavanaugh. In The Reckoning men were abusing an enormously unequal position to behave in a brutal way. In Hollywood there was huge difference between Weinstein the producer and women who wanted to be in movies he was producing and might produce in the future. And Weinstein used that difference to get away with unprecedented brutal workplace assaults. And everyone in Hollywood knew it. The same is true of the other media figures - there was huge power disparity and the assaults were unusual, disgusting and brutal.
But out in the DC suburbs in the private high schools there was no such power disparity. The high school boys had no way to lure these girls with false pretences - "We need to review your presentation in my hotel lobby, afterwards switched to "my hotel room." That's what they said in Hollywood. That doesn't correspond to "Come on over to house X where there are no parents and we'll drink and listen to rock and PARTY." No girl thought, hearing that thought,"Hmmm, I wonder if I should take my Aristotle book in case they begin to discuss the ontological argument presentation I made in class." Moreover, those boys had no way to threaten these girls of their own age and status to keep them silent afterward. So the idea that Kavanaugh or anyone else could possibly have gotten away with terrible behavior without anyone knowing or retaliating is just wrong. It's smear.
But in the colleges under Title IX a woman can smear a man, refuse to show him the charges, count on the Title IX leader to assume the guilt of the man, count on the testimony of the man and his friends being disregarded, count on refuted evidence being believed by the Title IX leader, count on refusing to allow lawyers, and the woman can refuse to answer questions. The attack on Brett Kavanaugh is an attempt to normalize these Title IX kangaroo courts and to normalize destroying the lives of men. Look at Senator Hirono saying that men should just step out of the picture. Some men in her mother's life were quite abusive but does this mean that United States Senator Hirono can just hate half of America? Is that upholding the Constitution?
For the more movie-minded I'll add this one (Col. Jessup was wrong overall but was correct about this):
We use words like "honor", "code", "loyalty". We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline.
Kavanaugh has a decades-long history of doing the right thing and being a good man. That you nice centrist folks consider his honor so unimportant that you'd laugh a him for being a Boy Scout and jeer at uncorroborated smears with a dismissive "it's just a job interview" is a reflection on your poor character and not on his good one.
almost brings himself to tears.
MSM way of saying that he didn't bring himself to tears.
Deleting comments calling you out doesn't make your snarky bullshit walk back of being an accomplice to the career, reputation, and family rape of Judge Kavanaugh any less disgusting.
It does speak loudly that you feel some shame for it though.
Kavanaugh played football and captained the Basketball team in prep school. That and homework left him zero time to screw around. If his goal was to be #! at Georgetown you can be he was conscious every minute of every day (all 365) what he was doing and whether it would pass muster. Private schools are watching you year round. You screw up in the summer it is not ignored.
Someone asked yesterday who was funding Ford. Good question. Her legal fees are not insignificant at this point.
I went to a Jesuit high school. I was of a different generation, but I knew guys like Kavanaugh. There really are people born with a sense of balance and decency. He seems more of that type than like a swaggering jock. As a general rule, getting an unbroken string of A's is more consistent with grinding books rather than pelvises.......Maybe somewhere along the line he did something out of character. I don't know. I do know that his accuser is capable of holding a grudge for an extraordinarily long time and waiting for just the right time to pounce.
I am not sure if the hip, sophisticated professor is making fun of Professor Kavanaugh.
I am sure that she has not responded to MaxedoutMomma's post from the weekend.
You need to do that Ann if you want to be credible.
What a good boy I was! All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!
I’ve been reading our hostess for many years, and I’ll credit this statement to something other than snark. She has often remarked on the uncommon squeaky clean .....freakishly clean!.....quality of Republican nominees. It’s her argument that someone who has dogpaddled once or twice in the murky waters of life might bring a more human perspective to the decisions of a Supreme Court judge. Dare I say, the white boy equivalent of a Wise Latina?
So rather than snark, perhaps it was a mocking reference to the emotions of a guy who has somehow managed to swim in the clear, clean, fresh, cool water of a pristine northern Wisconsin lake. Or maybe, as I, she is somewhat skeptical of the perfectly timed tear calculated to evoke sympathy among the wymins.
Assuming, as we must, the best of the man, I can’t imagine how awful this must be for him if he has lived his life striving and achieving only to have it all crapped up by the lefties who will stop at nothing to get their way. In that case, I wouldn’t be reaching for a Kleenex. I’d be reaching for my Beretta and a large capacity magazine.
- Krumhorn
What a good boy I was! All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!
I read that in a snarky, sarcastic tone, which may be in error, but if correct, then what a cheap shot it is.
There are more people than you may believe in this land who strive to do good, get ahead, stay married, raise their children to be good people as well, be good friends and neighbors, and to earn their successes. To make fun of, to make a joke of a man's defense against opportunistic and unsupported allegations that bring disrepute upon his whole professional & personal life, is petty.
Most of my prep school class was obsessed with class rank because we thought it was more important for college admissions than it was, and we were closely grouped (59 of 60 went to 4 yr college). The school gave extra weight for honors and AP classes, and the extra 15% for BC Calculus vs. 10% for AB was a major bone of contention.
#2 told me I got #1 by the skin of my teeth, but they didn't tell me that.
You know...I played spin the bottle several times growing up...there goes my nomination to the Supreme Court.
All the Dems on the Committee are a complete disgrace; starting with DiFi and the woman from Hawaii.
You need to do that Ann if you want to be credible.
Someone seems to be looking for a guru. In all the wrong places.
At least he isn't wearing shorts on TV...
Asked again and again to speculate about other people's motives, he always declined. He would not say anything bad about any individual. He always made it about the allegations, not the person. The person he spoke of was himself.
I believe that speculating about other people's motives is what kills most political discourse. We are wired to consider motive; to avoid it to focus on argument or fact is emotionally exhausting. On the other hand, the leap to ascribe motive drives a great deal of self-righteous blindness, not to mention outright paranoia. One way to avoid the rathole of motive is to continually refocus on fact -- which can be somewhat limiting. Another is the ethic of reporting -- distill what you hear without adding a judgment. Another is the discursive adventure -- there are always better stories than the present stupidity. Finally there is the tactic of self-reference. Cast no aspersions and be as dull as possible.
One of the hundred extras in Tolstoy's War and Peace is Lieutenant Alphonse Karlovich Berg:
Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.
OK, Democrats, you don't want Trump because for years he ran around with wild women, held pool parties and now uses social media effectively, retaliates and trashes on his enemies. And, OK, Democrats, you don't want Brett Kavanaugh who "walked the line" with his family and personal life, behaves like a judge, tries to stay impartial and unemotional.
So, Democrats, tell us what your image of a good man is. Bill Clinton? Keith Ellison? Handy Harvey Weinstein? Rachel Maddow? What?
In high school, I was blessed with pimples and poverty. Getting laid was not an option.......I address this question to those who got excellent grades and who were not afflicted with dorkiness: does academic success impede or enhance sexual success? From what I remember, the jocks had better luck than the rest of us, but I knew some studious kids who had to get married prior to graduation......Most of my high school graduating class were virgins, and we didn't brag about it.
Letter from Kavanaugh to Gressley & Feinstein.
https://twitter.com/ElizLanders/status/1044281254395424769/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1044281254395424769&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.powerlineblog.com%2Farchives%2F2018%2F09%2Fjudge-kavanaugh-speaks.php
From what I remember, the jocks had better luck than the rest of us,
If your town was like most, the bad boys had the best luck. The nice guys finished last.
*Grassley*
The NYT is 100% wrong below. In fact, it couldn’t be more wrong.
“An elite Catholic boys’ high school founded in 1789, Georgetown Prep is known for its motto, “Forming men for others,” a reference to its many alumni who have gone into public service. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch of the Supreme Court is a graduate, as is Jerome H. Powell, chairman of the Federal Reserve.”
When a man struggles to not cry, it's met by amused derision by many, while a woman would receive empahty and that's the way it is. A man would never get away with what this Ford woman is doing. Are women just as capable as men or not, not and we all know they get special treatment.
Game, set , match to Brett. And his biggest supporter is now a man with extreme social intelligence and who Is simply not foolable by con men...Trump .
Kavanaugh appears to be a truly decent man. He embodies the "fruit of the Spirit." He seems incapable of even contemplating what he's accused of. Even in this interview, he is remarkably restrained.
But I hope once he's confirmed, that he goes all Al Capone on his accusers.
"I want these people dead! I want their families dead! I want their houses burned to the ground! I want to go there in the middle of the night and piss on their ashes!"
A few specific Supreme Court opinions should do the trick. That, and the mother of all defamation lawsuits.
Hoodlum asks: Do I sense that you're still unhappy with how much of a goody-goody Kavanaugh is/was, Professor?
Do you still wish he was a little more human and a little less saintly?
Maybe we'd prefer Althouse is she had some bad habits.
Althouse, haven't you known any males who are simply good men who could serve as an example of what Kavanaugh seems to be? You've had a Father, a Brother, two husbands and two sons. Aren't any of them worth a fuck as decent human beings? Surely at least one or two meet the bill.
Take Meade, for example. Or maybe one of the others.
Ann Althouse said...
Let me remind commenters again: Do not put extra paragraph breaks beyond a single extra space between paragraphs. Adding a couple extra breaks at the end of your comment earns deletions. I'm hardcore about this.
********
Can you explain this rule? What problems does it create for you? AFAIK it's unique to your blog.
And...since this is a "thing" with you, why not put a warning after the "You can use some HTML tags..." below the comment box?
Kavanaugh’s testimony reminded me of Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a book I taught so many times I virtually memorized it. Harper Lee did a beautiful job showing the skill Tom R used in deflecting questions from a white lawyer concerning the alleged rape of a white woman by him, a black man. When asked if he was saying that Mayella Ewell, his accuser, was lying, he found a way to stand his ground without calling her a liar: “She was mistaken in her mind.”
Kavanaugh sounded scripted because he knew of the land mines set around him. His plan was never to address his accusers but to simply affirm he was defending himself, hopefully in a fair America. At one point I turned to my wife and said, “He’s doing well but needs to show some outrage, however he can. And just like that it came, a flash of anger, outrage. Not hyperbolic, but very clearly there.
His wife was a true ally in this. Together the takeaway was, This is a decent and honest family.
Thank God that I wasn’t a good boy in high school.
Finding Kavanaugh's faults is easy. He tries to do the best work, tries to be a good friend, tries to treat poor people well, and generally makes the rest of us look bad in comparison That makes me mad at him, but why not use his talents. He is one in ten thousand and he wants to do a good job for us. So maybe we can put up with his faults.
He consistently and repeatedly emphasizes how much he respects women, it doesn’t ring true. It sounds like a thou protesteth too much sort of thing.
What problems does it create for you?
Aesthetic awfulness.
Yeah, he's a real Dudley-do-right. And i mean that without sarcasm or disrespect.
Kavanaugh's the kinda of guy who coaches his girls BB team, goes to church, treats women with respect, really. So, his reaction is one of pained surprise to being accused of sexual assault. "Why are they lying about me"? He thinks.
I like Clarence Thomas' "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" reaction better.
But then I'm not a Dudley-do-right.
I see several people have commented on the quote "And then, the second thing, being captain of the varsity basketball team. What a good boy I was! All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!".
If not mockery, then that statement seems to imply Althouse perceiving shallow self-pity on Kavanaugh's part.
There is obviously something about his Type that brings her studied disdain that intellectual frippery cannot hide; in a novel, this could be an author giving us a glimpse of something the character wants to stay hidden, but cannot, perhaps because of pride -- pride of overcoming, pride of achieving, pride of the cruel neutrality perceived in one's own thoughts.
So I went back to some old posts in the Gatsby Project to refresh my memory of Althouse's mind following where it may lead, rather than the squaring of a circle to nudge a desired outcome.
Two Gatsby lines jumped out in particular:
"It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment."
and
"A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: 'There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.'"
I'll leave it there; I'm going to go have a cigarette.*
(*Googling "gatsby two cigarettes' brought the link to "Althouse: "I'll be the man smoking two cigarettes.” as the top hit. Nice.)
I am Laslo.
Haven't watched the interview yet, but if Kavanaugh joined DKE at Yale in 1983 he was not a square. He was a lout (by Yale standards). Fraternities were almost non-existent at Yale at that time, so if you pledged for DKE (which had been founded at Yale) you were making a statement about your partying priorities. (There were plenty of other partying opportunities. Hell, in my slightly earlier day the dorm ("residential college") social committee budgeted for weed.)
The whole "Renate Alumni" business being excavated does not speak well of him either.
For a sweet recent film about a (public) high school junior with dreams of attaining class rank of #1, thinking it necessary to get into Yale and go on to become a supreme court justice (I kid not), I recommend "Class Rank".
Inga...Allie Oop: "He consistently and repeatedly emphasizes how much he respects women, it doesn’t ring true."
The Bill Clinton/Keith Ellison/Duke Lacrosse/UVA Rape Hoax/Hoax Russian Dossier crew chimes in.
You could go looking for empathy in the Professor's post...but you'd be looking for a long time.
traditionalguy - that was insightful. I for one have never for long entertained the thought that Kavanaugh is not as good a person as I am (I am no kidding - I am a mediocrity, and I offer to God my mediocrity in the same spirit that the little drummer boy, a boring little fellow, offered up his drumming in the Christmas fable). But I have something in common with him. I truly believe both that we should try to succeed in this world, in order to help others, and that we should maintain a moral code.
I detest the intellectual failure that brought him to Capitol Hill to a place where he could call the tyrant Anthony Kennedy his hero. That being said, he is qualified to be a Supreme Court Justice, which is not that big a thing.
Here is why I think Flake and Collins and Murkowski will vote for him. Whether you agree or not with their points of view, they are not total innocents.
And they know how such things as this happen - and here I am going to talk about something in my past that bothers me. When I was in the military, I went to a training course, at which I was the senior officer. As such, I went to all the parties that the officers held. At some of the parties, after I left, there was a little bit of debauchery - nothing illegal, just one lieutenant mooning another of the opposite sex, that sort of thing. And here is the evil thing - the other officers, and a couple of the NCOs who got invited to the party, thought it was a "thing" to lie and say I was the guy who mooned the girls. Why? Because of evil in their hearts? Nah, it was just so improbable that it was funny. They did not do it because they were evil, they just thought it was funny to lie about me, the "Ned Flanders" of the group, in their addled media-hypnotized minds.
When people take advantage of drunks of the other sex, that is sinful. People joke about sin.
Flake and Collins and Mnuchin and Murkowski all know that good guys are often lied about. I am not saying I know what happened. I am only saying that if Kavanaugh is kept off the Supreme Court, and if people never have any real substantial basis to consider him guilty, the reaction will be something that you will not predict. Literally, one branch of our government will lose not most of its authority but all of its authority, The results will not be what the evildoers want, if I am right in my predictions,
State governors will defy the Supreme Court, with the complete backing of the people of their states. The Clintons and Cuomos and Feinsteins will be, a decade or two from now, to Americans what Steppin Fetchit is to contemporary rappers, what the disgraceful Wagner is to Zionists, what Nixon is to the Hamilton fans of today's Manhattan. Dozens of Supreme Court justices will be impeached. Cats and dogs will live together in harmony, and there will be statues of Kavanaugh, defended 24/7 by second amendment zealots, in every large town except downtown L.A. and Park Slope in Brooklyn.
"I am no kidding" should read "I am not kidding"
"the other officers" should read "some of the other officers"
Yeah. Women are just overcome by the moment and cry. Men bring themselves to tears.
Why did the talking head miss the follow up on the virginity question?
“Why?”
I'm a lawyer with two stints as a prosecutor and was a defense attorney in between. 60 or so jury trials. No way Kav loses in court with this last second hit job and the lack of credibility of his accusers. The lack of evidence and partisan motivation makes the case against him a joke. But we're not in court. The trial lawyer in me wishes the wife had sa listening next to her husband and then with silent tears running down her face until he stopped talking to the interviewer, turned to his wife and told her, "Don't worry, it will be okay."
What bothers me most is the description of the event as "creditable" by the democrats and the press. Why not "unsubstantiated", why not "alleged"? Creditable would mean to me there is other information to back up the claim - there is not even basic information about the claim. Creditable is the claims against Keith Ellison with 911 calls and other backup (and his activities are described as alleged), creditable is the claim by Juanita Broaddrick with details of when and where and collaboration by friends at the time (and Clinton's activities are described as alleged). Unsubstantiated means that is no collaborating evidence. We have no collaborating evidence, in fact we have testimony that it did not happen, was not there, didn't ever meet Kavanaugh.
What we have here is a probable liberal activist, who has purged her social media so we can't judge how TDS she is, who is hiding behind lawyers, who is not giving a sworn deposition, who demands that Brett Kavanaugh testify first so she can avoid stating a fact that can readily be shown as false, who can't fly now or dress right so she can delay the whole process, who has attempted to witness tamper by "asking" her friends if they "remember" anything about it. The claim is also over the top so it will get maximum effect - it is not groped or tried to kiss (which might have been reasonable), it is attempted rape and fear for my life (which are no statue of limitations crimes).
This, combined with the facts that the democrats avoided this during the hearings and only "brought" it up afterwords when it had "leaked" to the press and that democratic lawyers were saying they had a plan to derail the nomination back in July, removes any shadow of a doubt (for me) that this is a planned smear job, not a real event that occurred between Kavanaugh and Ford in high school.
Your mileage may vary but we know nothing about her and her background except she is a professor and she claims to be traumatized.
The Ministry of Truth would be proud of the selection of terms used here.
You want crying? Wait until Ford testifies. There will be tears.
Because it's the same vekakte garbage as the dossier, that pick from the other end, creepy porn lawyer just punctuated the point
ALTHOUSE, I think I just made up my mind - you are simply a bullshitting snark troll. You can only DREAM of being of being 10% the person Kavanaiugh is and 1% of what he has achieved in Life. My theory? You know that as well as I say it and it simply pisses of your narcissistic ass. But, oh, yes, you are "hardcore on deletions"! OMG Wahoo for u.
I don't know how long he was a virgin but I wonder if anyone is going to ask him how it feels to be fucked by the Democrats and the lying slutbags of the Women's Movement?
I have decided you are a cruel person. You deluded yourself you are neutral, but I grant you the cruelty.
I do have to say it is very amusing to see Laslo start to drop his comic persona and begin to realize just how terrible this other Feminazi professor really is in real life.
Its all a joke until some slut bag pokes your eye out.
Her contempt and belittling of this good man shows you just who she is. Just another liberal affirmative action feminist who couldn't hold Judge Kavanaugh's jock.
It is amazing how far this man will go to humiliate himself for this job.
Will he tell us the first time he felt a tit? Does he have any witnesses? Can he prove that he never got his end wet?
This is what happens when you cater to soap opera women.
Althouse, why the need to mock/doubt this guy's decency? You say you currently have no bad habits, so were you not always so perfect? You graduated first in your class at NYU, so you must have had a good amount of self-discipline as a young adult. Were you a wild-child in high school and can't relate to people who were self-disciplined as teenagers? Does the "cool" 60s hippy-chick teenager in you still feel the need to make fun of the "squares"?
Women's Movement?
n-wave Feminists
There are many women's movements that are family, male, and country friendly.
Like Al Swearinger of Deadwood the HBO thing Althouse has her moods and then later figures out the reasons why, 'cordin' to doc in the show.
langford peel - you do not understand people very well, if this comment is what you really think.
Forget paragraph spacing. Is it ok to write a post while wearing shorts?
I understand people very well Stevie. I just don't sugarcoat it with bullshit.
This is all about abortion. They want to be able to murder babies up until they are born. Death is their lodestar. Nothing less will satisfy these zealots. They will tell any lie, fabricate any crime and destroy anyone's reputation in order to keep their foul murderous ways legal. That is what this nomination is about.
Feminists are evil and crazy. Althouse is a card carrying dyed in the wool feminist.
Even Laslo is getting it. Finally.
This,is,cnn:
https://mobile.twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1044383009544245248
This is the fellow who got his colleagues daughter pregnant,
@AA. I was admonished earlier for having excessive space at then end of few posts. I discovered that I had removed a few sentences or an entire paragraph and then hit "publish". It was as though the program thought then verbiage was still there and left a large blank space for it. It was not intentional.
When a man struggles to not cry, it’s met by amused derision by many, while a woman would receive empahty and that's the way it is.
Did you see Tiger Woods struggle not to cry Sunday when the crowd was cheering him wildly for his victory? It happens to men in emotional situations.
Althouse said that if there were nothing at stake, she would believe the woman, but that is as far from the case as can be.
Google the statement issued by Kavanaugh's Yale freshman roommate, James Roche. It accords with my take that he was a lout, not a square. Based on his friendship with Debbie Ramirez, Roche trusts her version of events in their frosh dorm over his former roommate's.
Jane Mayer wrote that one of her sources for the Ramirez story said that the incident was well known and that he forever has associated Kavanaugh with that night whenever his name came up in the news.
Althouse has no sympathy for a splooge stooge.
She only has cruelty. No neutrality.
You can look it up.
As rh would say it is all grist for the mill of the soap opera woman.
“I have decided you are a cruel person. You deluded yourself you are neutral, but I grant you the cruelty.”
Hahahaha, they only like Althouse when she agrees with them. You haven’t yet discovered that she can be cruel? They only like it when she’s cruel to their enemies. What dummies.
(eaglebeak)
There are people who simply, truly try to be good. It may seem risible to others, but that's unfair.
Years ago, when I was a leftist (so that was YEARS ago, when I was in my early 20s), I was trying to get my best friend to join the stupid group I was in. She got tears in her eyes and said, "But I don't want to be a communist. I want to be a good girl."
I never forgot it. It was very striking, and it wasn't funny. We remained best friends till the day she died.
@Stephen Cooper,
Re "I am no kidding - I am a mediocrity, and I offer to God my mediocrity..."
Have you ever watched Amadeus?
"Mediocrities everywhere, I absolve you." - Salieri.
Actually, what Tom Lehrer said about Mozart is the way I feel about Kavanaugh: "It's people like this who make you realize how little you've accomplished."
it doesn’t ring true. It sounds like a thou protesteth too much sort of thing.
The fool feeeelz.
The accusers are crazy or lying.
VOTE !
“Currently, 40 percent of voters would confirm Kavanaugh, while 50 percent oppose him, according to a Fox News poll. Last month, views split 45-46 percent (August 19-21).
More voters believe Ford’s claims than Kavanaugh’s denials by a 6-point margin, 36 vs. 30 percent. However, about one-third, 34 percent, are unsure who is telling the truth.
Women are more likely to believe Ford by 10 points, and among suburban women that jumps to 17. Men side with her by just 1 point.
White voters divide by education: those with a college degree believe Ford by a 14-point margin, while those without a degree side with Kavanaugh by 17.
Democrats believe Ford by a 59-9 percent margin. It’s the reverse among Republicans, 60 percent believe him, 14 percent her.
Since August, support for Kavanagh’s confirmation dropped 12 points among independents, 11 points among suburban women, and 10 points among voters under age 45. Support is also down, by smaller margins, among men (-5 points), women (-4), Democrats (-5), and Republicans (-4).”
Fox News
thought it was a "thing" to lie and say I was the guy who mooned the girls. Why? Because of evil in their hearts? Nah, it was just so improbable that it was funny. They did not do it because they were evil, they just thought it was funny to lie about me, the "Ned Flanders" of the group,
This happened to me in high school. A bunch of stoners got busted and all accused me of being their dealer as pre-arranged. Why? Because the very idea was absurd. I still ended up being interviewed by the OSI and was about 30 minutes from being shipped out of the country at one point.
"it doesn’t ring true."
Unlike the Kavanaugh rape train...
Kavanaugh admitted to being a virgin until well into his twenties. No guy admits such a thing ( at least from my age cohort) unless it's true and he has to. Way too embarrassing. Plus having made that statement now he whether advertently or inadvertently put himself in a position that some woman will claim he screwed her when he was a teen or in college. As for Ford, unless she testifies under oath with the penalty of perjury she is to be presumed a liar. After the election, if the Republicans maintain the Senate McConnell should seek to have Feinstein, Schumer, Blumenthal and Hirono expelled. They wanted scorched earth, give it to them.
Inga said ... "More voters believe Ford’s claims than Kavanaugh’s denials by a 6-point margin, 36 vs. 30 percent. However, about one-third, 34 percent, are unsure who is telling the truth."
I guess that shows Inga is in the mainstream of stupid and uninformed voters. People who have a generally superficial understanding of the world around them.
readering, God you're working hard to keep this balloon afloat. Well keep at. I'm sure you'll find the tipping point where hearsay trumps sworn denial.
Kavanaugh reminds me a little of Billy Budd. Billy couldn't comprehend that he was being falsely accused by Claggart. It didn't compute. His innocence and naivete couldn't handle such a thing.
So then he killed Claggart. (Spoiler alert.)
I don't know who Kavanaugh will kill, but it won't be pretty.
"All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!"
And suppose he was in fact good, that in fact he is among the best America has to offer, that his judgment is solid, his treatment of colleagues and underlings first-rate, his teaching at Yale and Harvard top-notch, what then?
Forget Kavanaugh: what does it mean for the country that such a man can be treated in this way?
And what does it mean for the country that smart feminists aid and abet the smears from the sidelines of their blog?
Inga, Yes yes. But what do YOU think, and why?
> There is obviously something about his Type that brings her studied disdain that intellectual frippery cannot hide;
He can't be boyfriend material if he is unwilling to lay around analyzing dreamy Dylan lyrics: just another bourgeois striver following the path of The Man rather than questioning it.
“Inga, Yes yes. But what do YOU think, and why?”
I told you what I thought at 8:07 PM.
Rabel said...
You want crying? Wait until Ford testifies. There will be tears.
No way she testifies. Her team will require conditions that the Senate won't agree to (as a strategy)- then she'll accuse them of bullying her and 're-victimizing' her. Anyway, her story is weak and unsubstantiated. She has no memory of where/when, and all four named as being there doesn't know what she's talking about. The last one, her friend, say she's never been to any party that included kav.
Last I heard, I assume K Burns documentary about Deadwood is the sour s but ifhou source me your fuckex,
Calamity Jane in one trip brought ten young whores to be turned (into whores) on just one trip from Sydney, NE.
Inga: "Hahahaha, they only like Althouse when she agrees with them."
Refresh my memory.
What was it you called Althouse a little while back that led you to leave the blog for some time?
LOL
Inga cites polls. I don’t delegate either my conscience or my thinking to the mob so I don’t care.
Inga thinks I’m a patsy, polls rule! I have words for what I think Inga is.
"I don't know who Kavanaugh will kill, but it won't be pretty."
Kavanaugh will kill Althouse's dream of worthless little government tyrants being able to threaten and use state sanctioned violence to make people bake her precious little boy a cake.
That he might also have the chance to chip away at her cherished baby murder on demand will just be the icing on the . . . cake.
sayaah: "Forget paragraph spacing. Is it ok to write a post while wearing shorts?"
Yes, but how that post got into my shorts I'll never know....
is Our Lady of the Blogosphere, Ann, the patron saint of Those With No Bad Habits
looking down on this poor soul's pitiful attempts to claim moral rectitude?
Inga - do you buy Kieth Ellison's denial? I bet you do.
Inga also admires Peter STrozk and feels he'd be a great face of the corruptocrat party.
The only way Kavanaugh could redeem himself in the eyes of the lefties would be to shove a cigar up an intern and/or leave her to drown in a car while enjoying a comfortable nights sleep in a hotel.
LilyBart: "No way she testifies."
Indeed, they are already backing out.
Polls show corruption excusing a-holes who voted for Corrupt money grubber Hillary and approved of her use of a private Server, all agree that known Trump hater Ford is telling the truth!
Inga, 8:07 expresses doubt simply because someone attacked vigorously defends himself. What do you think? There are three allegations. Where do you stand on each, and why?
Good guys finish last, as the saying goes, and as the professor's dig at that impression reads. This tends to fit with societal bias - we don't think highly of men who are goody two-shoes for the most part (though honestly they are exactly the types you want in government, law, or accounting), we much prefer brusque brutes like Trump.
From my end, I share the experience of never having dated or had any sexual encounter with a girl in high school or college (believe me ladies, none of you were worth the trouble at that age, and most of you made fashion choices that were big turn-offs).
Most people who read that will snicker and think I missed out on something (or go right to the F word implication), but I also avoided all the manipulation, breakups, regretted sexual encounters, diseases, and drama that came from the dating scene in those years, and ironically enough was usually the one the other guys came to with their dating problems. I simply wasn't ready at age 18-22 and had the good sense to recognize it and stay out of the game.
If Kavanaugh is lying, he should have become an actor rather than a judge. He comes off as extremely believable.
Kavanaugh admitted to being a virgin until well into his twenties. No guy admits such a thing
Then he found a pretty cat without a hat, and they have two lovely kittens. Totally worth it.
Rabel said...
Althouse, haven't you known any males who are simply good men who could serve as an example of what Kavanaugh seems to be? You've had a Father, a Brother, two husbands and two sons. Aren't any of them worth a fuck as decent human beings? Surely at least one or two meet the bill.
Take Meade, for example. Or maybe one of the others.
Sure, Althouse likes to mock squares -- it's a bad old habit but she's not anyone. Plus it's generational with her. She obviously gets a bad vibe from Kavanaugh. She just doesn't believe him at this point. Welcome to gynocracy! Who knew women could be so ruthless?
Drago said...
Inga: "Hahahaha, they only like Althouse when she agrees with them."
Refresh my memory.
-
What was it you called Althouse a little while back that led you to leave the blog for some time?
<
I think it was "dumb bitch"..as she was "leaving" here.
But she thinks there's blood in the water so she's back.
(Ellison was simply enjoying Islamic male prerogatives)
I bet Trump deliberately picked him because he was so squeaky clean.
It was a trap for the Democrats...
I really hope Kavanaugh is confirmed. He is a good man and a good judge. But ... if he is defeated, Trump should consider nominating Britt Grant. She is a former Kavanaugh clerk who was a justice of the Georgia Supreme Court until about 2 months ago when she was confirmed by the Senate to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta. In this way, the Dems will have traded a 53 year old man for a 40 year old woman, one who the Senate JUST CONFIRMED. Try Borking/Kavanaughing her, you Dem a-holes!
CWJ Quite easy.
One area I believe him. Virginity. Many at Yale from what I could tell.
Blogger Ray said...
I bet Trump deliberately picked him because he was so squeaky clean.
It was a trap for the Democrats...
Oh, I agree. He was a Romney choice if he had been elected.
I got a news alert from the NYTs telling me some woman mentioned obscurely in his HIGH SCHOOL YEARBOOK is pissed This is absolutely insane It’s like people have lost the thread
Prager says liberals don't fight evil, liberals fight those who fight evil. While talking about environment factors of child rearing with a "liberal college kid" sociologist type mentality. I printed the wiki page(s) on Rotherham scandal. She'd never heard of it.
Much in life depends who you hang with.
Trolls need Avenatti, and in their need amplify his character. Makes them feel smart.
Since August, support for Kavanagh’s confirmation dropped 12 points among independents, 11 points among suburban women, and 10 points among voters under age 45. Support is also down, by smaller margins, among men (-5 points), women (-4), Democrats (-5), and Republicans (-4).”
'The bedpan commando relies on polls that none of us respond to.
I guess that is why Hillary won the election.
All we have is what these people say and what they have done. Kavanaugh seems to be consistent and credible. Ford seems manipulative--consider her letter to Grassley and her diva-like demands of the committee.
Ford doesn't know when, where, or who. No one she has cited has confirmed her story. I am sure she will come up with some colorful details on Thursday to improve her story, but it seems unlikely that Kavanaugh would act so far out of character.
Common sense tells me that Kavanaugh should be confirmed.
If Kavanaugh is not confirmed, he will still be the same good person. Ford will be the same neurotic dissembler. He'll always be happy and will always find ways to be useful. She'll always be a mess.
Mr. Majestyk said...Borking/Kavanaughing her, you Dem a-holes!
Which is worse to be "borked" or to be "kavanaughed"? "Borked" sounds quick and painless compared with "kavanaughed."
"Kavanaughing sounds like "Kava-gnawing" which sounds drawn out and painful.
Wasn't the treatment of Clarence Thomas simply the Democrat's way of shouting NIGGER?
Benjamin Carson as well?
Ney, I'm just "advocating vigorously" here.
Hey not ney
It is obvious that the left has not the slightest idea how angry beyond words we on the right are. They haven't got a clue.
“The bedpan commando relies on polls that none of us respond to”
The butcher didn’t notice it was a Fox News poll. Fox News viewers most definitely responded to it.
Senile old goat.
Mr Majestyk has a great idea. And she will have a firm opinion on how he was treated.
Asked again and again to speculate about other people's motives, he always declined. He would not say anything bad about any individual. He always made it about the allegations, not the person. The person he spoke of was himself.
Maybe he really believes his religion. To borrow one from Althouse.
In another Guam tip-over event, I found myself watching Mitch McConnell with approval. He gave an excellent speech on the Democratic smear campaign showing all the ways they violated Senate hearing procedure and promised to bring the Kavanaugh nomination to the floor after Ford. Sad to say, he did not say he had the votes on the floor. But no doubt Senators are holding off till Ford and Kavanaugh speak which I suppose is overall a good idea. We think we know enough to make up our minds - it's the nature of news these days; yet actual events - someone speaking - can still round out a sequence. And anyhow McConnell has lost his squish.
Ballsy-Ford will not testify. She can't make up lies fast enough to cover her previous laid tracks. And I suspect she can't think on her feet *cough*.
Much in life depends who you hang with.
Or what you watch/hear. I've noted that women who watch Rachel Maddow all have the same talking points. Just like a Chatty-Cathy doll that gives the same predictable response to her string being pulled. And they never question anything Maddow says. Their minds are made up. And I'm talking about college-educated professional women. Sad.
I was around when Bork was Borked and when Thomas was lynched. I would say that what is being done to Kavanaugh is worse than either of those two outrages. Bork was smeared based on his judicial views. The smear against Thomas concerned alleged sexual harassment, not violence. With Kavanaugh, they're claiming sexual assault and gang rape.
Well we can start with the methodology;
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2018/01/29/fox-news-poll-methodology-statement.html
Btw they insist the polls weren't wrong in 2016
mockturtle--parroting Maddow saves having to think. It's like chewing gum.
With Kavanaugh, they're claiming sexual assault and gang rape.
When RBG's replacement is nominated the accusations will involve aggravated murder. Maybe serial aggravated murders.
I think this is a Rubicon moment. If Ford declines to testify, or offers no more evidence than she has (which is a list of witnesses all of whom controversy her) and Kavanaugh is rejected I think the consequences will be dire. If she can supply something checkable or concrete then that's a different story. But the system breaks if people are tried by innuendo and polls. There is little enough faith in your political and judicial institutions as it is.
My own opinion, based on what I have seen, is that Ford has a false memory. I think she is sincere but I am troubled by her refusal to simply appear and testify, no strings, and by her excuse about a supposed fear of flying whilst flying frequently to Hawaii and the east coast. My opinion is precisely the opposite of Althouse’s. I base my opinion on the facts here stated, not on delegating my judgment to her husband.
Unlike Althouse I accept people believe their memories. This is not (just) snark. Althouse infers *truth* from Ford's reaction to her memory, I infer only *belief*. She can be wrong in what she remembers. Althouse's position relies on rejecting this possibility.
Mockturtle
No. You might think murder a worse crime, but they do not. Google Jack Abbott Norman Mailer, and compare it to Louis C K.
I am perfectly serious.
Althouse's attitudes explain why bad boys get lucky. Remember the sultry, red-headed art student--no squares for her. Kavanaugh would be bor-r-r-r-ring.
"There are so many things that might have made him cry, and clearly he didn't want to cry, but it provides an insight into his mind to see what was the thought that made it most difficult to maintain his composure. "
Cruel neutrality... Professor, give me a break. Your exegetical standards are so outcome-driven. There is no way that someone applying the standards you give yourself would have written this sentence, at least not without failing to adhere to those standards.
Ken B said... I am troubled by her refusal to simply appear and testify, no strings, and by her excuse about a supposed fear of flying whilst flying frequently to Hawaii and the east coast.
-
All about delaying until Thursday
He's a fucking liar. What man hasn't shown his cock to an unwilling pussy. And spare me your virgin bullshit. Your haircut alone should dismiss you as a surrpreme court justice. Do you feather that shit? Dear god. And he goes on fox. That alone should say much. Well if he gets on the court he can commiserate with the bitter and angry sex abuser Thomas.
I like black cock but Clarence Thomas is an exception. He is really fucking ugly. The pube in the coke can is just nasty and I like nasty but not nasty from but ugly.
"I spent 0% of the my time drinking and chasing women in high school and college, the rest of my time I wasted."
Gosh. A person who has no bad habits and seeks intellectual pursuits and personal excellence.
Where do we find people like that? Highly suspicious. He must be a closet serial killer.
OldManRick wrote:
"What bothers me most is the description of the event as "creditable" by the democrats and the press."
Well, this conflates two similar looking and sounding words that don't have the same meaning. I haven't read the media closely, parsing words, but will grant that you have seen this phrasing. "Creditable" means passable, honorable, worthy etc. It has nothing to do with believable, which is what the word credible means. Just food for thought.
If your town was like most, the bad boys had the best luck. The nice guys finished last.
The bad boys, untroubled by the mores of the 'nice guys', had the testicular fortitude to ask women for sex.
And the women said yes.
People, people, people! You all know why Althouse was so snarky! She hates Kavanaugh because he may get rid of her fabulous Roe vs Wade decision. She can't go all bat shit crazy like Hirino because she still believes in the concept of innocent until proven guilty. But....
she is willing to degrade him by being snarky.
Like a few of the commenters, I was looking for more outrage from Kavanaugh, and perhaps you will see it on Thursday when he gets to address some of the people most deserving of that outrage- the Democratic Senators- he should tear them all new assholes, is my humble opinion. He really should watch the Clarence Thomas hearings to find the pristine example.
He is squeaky clean. That's not normal. He shouldn't be on the court
He isn't squeaky clean, he shouldn't be on the court
"Kavanaugh admitted to being a virgin until well into his twenties"
That ought to become a standard question in any future confirmation.
Accused, sorry, candidate, when did you lose your virginity?
- When I was 26. You are a prig, fail and dismissed
- When I was 17. You are a slut, fail and dismissed
It is fun to watch the bitter shitheads who embrace obvious lies to solve their conscience cry.
Even Althouse tried to believe it but just couldn’t do it.
Kavanagh will be on the court shortly.
But please believe Ingas polls and keep the screaming and hollering up.
McCabe will be indicted shortly.
Rosenstein will cut a deal to stay out of jail and add a couple decades to McCabes stay in jail. Be interesting to see if he throws Mueller under the bus.
It must feel strange for the professora to claim to be feminist and long for manly man,
hence put down man claiming to be goodly with snarky.
Why would anyone believe the liar Ford? She is a hardcore leftist who wants to be a Progressive hero by saving Roe and winning the Senate. What type of loon wears a pussy hat to a protest over a valid election? The woman who is afraid to fly but is a regular in Hawaii?
I doubt she will testify, but if she does it will be a bloodbath.
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“NEW HAVEN — Dozens of students dressed in black staged a sit-in at Yale Law School on Monday to protest the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and demand an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against him.”
Future lawyers? How fucked is that?
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong was about indulging female sexual fantasies when you're stuck in a boring marriage.
This is all about Tribalism. Men v. Women taken to a whole new level.
For some reason, the Dems think ALL women should vote D and be against Kavanaugh because of Roe. The Dems are in for a big shock in November. And Trump wins 40 states in 2020.
I think Ford will testify. If she doesn't, then no big book deals and no feting by the Left. She knows the Dems on the Committee will run interference for her and the press will pronounce that she conclusively proved that Kavanaugh committed attempted rape. She will testify to some new detail or fact that will draw attention away from all of the holes in her story.
tim in vermont said... "Althouse said that if there were nothing at stake, she would believe the woman, but that is as far from the case as can be."
This is not a good paraphrase of what I've said. I said if I had to say — and I don't — right then — for example if I had to make a bet — and I had no way to get more information, I'd pick the woman as being "closer to the truth." That isn't believing either person. It allows for both being off, but taking note of the breadth of Kavanaugh's denial, that he never did anything like that, ever.
Now, if you throw in the rest of it: the interests in fairness (which includes the ability to get more information and the way a burden of proof concept can get to a decision) and the consequences, then it's different. I am not the decisionmaker or the one who is choosing the procedure and analyzing the consequences (the stakes). I haven't gone into all of that. But I'll just say the stakes include more than just how much he and his family and associates will emotionally suffer if he loses. Most notably, the stakes include a person getting a lifetime position of power, some of it involving women's autonomy over our bodies.
He's not giving up. At this point, all the Democrats are doing is producing a Supreme Court Justice who hates Democrats.
All from the same people who participated in the conspiracy of silence, if not downright “slut shaming” regarding Bill Clinton for 30 years. It’s almost as if it’s only about whatever they need to believe to maintain power.
Althouse, you are a snob.
“But please believe Ingas polls and keep the screaming and hollering up.”
Inga’s polls? LOL. You mean FOX NEWS polls.
Althouse, “Most notably, the stakes include a person getting a lifetime position of power, some of it involving women's autonomy over our bodies.”
Speculation by you that Kavanaugh will overrule Roe. Two reasons he won’t: 1. It is precedent; and 2. If he did, the Left would kidnap and murder his daughters. Ask Steve Scalise about 2. That’s today’s Democrat party. No one can deny that.
“Most notably, the stakes include a person getting a lifetime position of power, some of it involving women's autonomy over our bodies.”
The stakes can always be adjusted to get the desired result. This time Roe was added to make Kavanaugh unfit. If Hillary had won, Roe would be used to make the unfit acceptable.
If Bill Clinton could be confirmed, so should Kavanaugh.
It is not a democracy if only one party’s judges can be a majority.
What a good boy I was! All that striving, all that effort at goodness — and look what they are doing to me now!
The original allegation is sexual assault, an unwanted touching. That has morphed into rapist so quickly it's not even funny. It's the favorite insult of feminists now. Are you not getting your way? Call him a rapist! Maybe you'll make him cry!
it provides an insight into his mind to see what was the thought that made it most difficult to maintain his composure.
1) There's a childishness about innocence. Kavanaugh is not a hard man, nor an unfeeling one. He was a nice boy, and he's grown up into a nice man. Women can either like that, or not. If women ever wonder, "gee, why are so many men angry and mean and violent and awful people?" Well, look how you treat the nice ones.
2) Thomas responded to the attacks on him with anger, and a lashing out at his enemies. "This is a high-tech lynching." Thomas is less innocent than Kavanaugh. He had a way less privileged back story. What's notable about Kavanaugh to me is that he's not angry or attacking anybody. He's being extraordinarily high-minded about it. He's assuming his opponents are mistaken, not malicious.
3) Thomas was replacing Marshall. That was a very big deal. And Kavanaugh is replacing Kennedy, who was the replacement for Bork, who was borked. If Kavanaugh wants to know what seat he is applying for, it's the abortion seat. Or the hot seat, in other words.
4) If Kavanaugh starts feeling sorry for himself--and we all do, from time to time--he should think about a baby who gets a knife in the neck. I am continually struck by how nobody on the Supreme Court is pro-life, or seems emotionally engaged on the subject at all.
Remember Inga and her participation in the conspiracy of silence re Bill Clinton? “You don’t know how I feel about Bill Clinton” - Inga
Now she has found the light, now that the shoe is on the other foot. It’s almost as if she only believes what she needs to believe to get power..... Naah!
We are living in a moment when the characterization of my alleged 1977 punch to the jaw of Vince Damico can escalate from high school fist fight to criminal battery to attempted murder to murder in a single news cycle.
At least Vince says I slugged him, but his big brother Nick swears it was Richie next door. Could be. Richie clobbered lots of guys. It was 40 years ago so heck if I remember. Nor do I recall if beer was involved, but the odds are good. Pot too
I think the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. You would have thought that the 800 year anniversary of it would have been celebrated, but the plan was its demise all along.
If it’s disqualifying to have not stopped stuff going on at a party, isn’t it disqualifying to have defended a rapist politician?
Most notably, the stakes include a person getting a lifetime position of power, some of it involving women's autonomy over our bodies.
I disagree, although clearly you and other people on the pro choice side see it that way.
But in addition, the stakes include the functioning of our system and whether we will allow a person to be disqualified from a position based on unprovable and unfalsifiable accusations. No person who is not part of a corrupt system will ever again be confirmed- all nominees will need to be part of a cabal which will protect him or her from malicious false charges. And those people will be beholden to that cabal (which not coincidentally, happens to mean keeping Roe and subsequent rulings that guarantee abortion on demand as settled law.)
This is why you are getting angry pushback from readers. You have written extensively on the situation and expressed a viewpoint sympathetic to the women who’ve made allegations AND to a process that is patently unfair to any conservative* who accepts a nomination.
*I say conservative because liberal nominees have not to date been treated this way. It is certainly possible, probable even, now that the Democrats have destroyed the integrity of the process, that they will be in the future.
The stakes also include the second amendment, religious freedom, and the limits of government power.
How does the country stay together if only one party is allowed to control the Supreme Court?
Boy, this is funny.
ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel took the stage on Tuesday and jokingly suggested that his “compromise” to the battle of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination is to chop off the judge’s “pesky penis,” should he be confirmed...“Hear me out on this,” Kimmel began “So Kavanaugh gets confirmed to the Supreme Court, OK? Well, in return we get to cut that pesky penis of his off in front of everyone.”
I’ve always credited Althouse for calling out the hypocrisy of feminists who supported Clinton.
I hope she will begin to see that this is the other side of the same coin.
"I've said it before: what drove me bonkers was media convicting Trump of Obama's crimes."
What crimes are those? (I don't question that Obama committed crimes, as have all our recent and not-so-recent presidents, including Trump, but what particular Obama crimes have been blamed on Trump?)
"I was focused on trying to be number 1 in my class and being captain of the varsity basketball team."
The humble-brag of the year!
Obama crimes have been blamed on Trump?)
Putting kids in cages.
Bill Clinton really is overdue for his turn, isn't he?
"Putting kids in cages."
Yes, that's true, Obama did do that. Another among his crimes.
But Trump is doing it, too. As I said, all our presidents are criminals.
Bill Clinton really is overdue for his turn, isn't he?
His turn will never come. The reason they are all so butt hurt right now is that he isn’t padding the West Wing this morning in his PJs prowling for comely interns.
Harvey Weinstein would be staying over in the Lincoln Bedroom regularly, as a good friend of Hillary and Bill, had Trump not won. We know it’s true, everybody knows it’s true. Ronan Farrow likely would have met with some kind of accident, or just dropped the story as a good Democrat.
Republican need to come out with an ad showing a woman who is a survivor of sexual assault, who is also a mother of a son. Except for irrational pussy-hat wearing lunatics, women don't want their sons assumed guilty because a woman decides to hurt them with an accusation. It diminishes actual victims.
Carl Bernstein: DiFi’s handling of this has played into the GOP’s hands.
Huh?
I have no idea whether Kavanaugh did what Ford says he did, but he could have done it and still have been a virgin until his mid-20s. She's not claiming he penetrated her.
I'd pick the woman as being "closer to the truth." That isn't believing either person. It allows for both being off, but taking note of the breadth of Kavanaugh's denial, that he never did anything like that, ever.
This is pretty frigging dishonest! This is a yes/no question. Did he do what Ford said he did? He says 'no'. That is not a broad statement. That is a specific statement.
But it also avoids the 'head I win, tails you lose' attitude of Ms. Althouse's ethical calculations. This woman can in horrible faith go public, kick him in the balls in such a manner as he gets NO defense, and eviscerates him in the press...and she makes zero moral judgments. I can't recall a single word you've said about this woman which is in any way condemnatory.
But if Brett said 'Yes, I met her once at a party but this never happened.', Althouse will then immediately assume he's a liar and he did it. THERE IS NO ANSWER HE CAN GIVE THAT ALTHOUSE WILL BUY! Because 'abortion'.
She's shown this bias before.
Now, if you throw in the rest of it: the interests in fairness (which includes the ability to get more information and the way a burden of proof concept can get to a decision) and the consequences, then it's different. I am not the decisionmaker or the one who is choosing the procedure and analyzing the consequences (the stakes). I haven't gone into all of that.
The readership has pretty much been insistent that Althouse DOES 'get into that'...or at least requesting that she justify her position using those legal tools.
The short answer of her 'getting into that' is that she can't justify her stance. Hence the removal of stakes, the removal of empathy, the removal of fairness from the discussion. All of those hinder her stance, which is 'abortion'.
But I'll just say the stakes include more than just how much he and his family and associates will emotionally suffer if he loses. Most notably, the stakes include a person getting a lifetime position of power, some of it involving women's autonomy over our bodies.
See?
A woman can make an emotional judgment on Kavanaugh and because of her lack of professionalism, still be given license to have an uninformed opinion. Lacking other tools, this ordinary woman is allowed to 'go with her gut'. Because ordinary woman is not responsible for a policy, a procedure and a huge body of knowledge.
But watching Ms. Althouse, a legal scholar forcibly remove her entire body of professionalism to be able to justify this stance and this procedure is sort of like going to a medical doctor and suddenly have them discuss how he is going to manipulate the of 'humors' (yellow bile, black bile, blood, phlegm) to treat your fever. Because he 'feelz' that it will be salubrious.
That sense of credibility and professionalism kind of takes a big hit. And it is taking a big hit because 'abortion' is not treated with 'cruel neutrality'.
Blogger deepelemblues said...The professor's stomach was moved by Kavanaugh. But her cruel neutrality doesn't let her simply acknowedge that without a snark or two added.
I reckoned it was her inner Coastie showing through.
some of it involving women’s autonomy over our bodies.
Yes, Dersh called it, women have a special gene that prevents them from lying, like Vulcans. Haven’t we seen enough hysteria over the fact that Hillary lost to see enough motivation for a woman to misremember who was responsible for something, mixed in with a healthy dose of pre-existing crazy.
AA: This is not a good paraphrase of what I've said. I said if I had to say — and I don't — right then — for example if I had to make a bet — and I had no way to get more information, I'd pick the woman as being "closer to the truth." That isn't believing either person. It allows for both being off, but taking note of the breadth of Kavanaugh's denial, that he never did anything like that, ever.
[...]
But I'll just say the stakes include more than just how much he and his family and associates will emotionally suffer if he loses. Most notably, the stakes include a person getting a lifetime position of power, some of it involving women's autonomy over our bodies.
You want to maintain the pretense that you recognize that there is no necessary connection between "credibility" and "stakes", while it's pretty obvious that "the stakes" have very much colored your judgment of credibility. (Consider, above, heavily loaded phrases like "women's autonomy over our bodies", following on portentously weighty phrasing like "the breadth of Kavanaugh's denial".)
I think this explains why so many here are finding your comments on this topic so uncharacteristically muddy and hard to understand.
Yeah, Althouse is relying on the “ring of truth” rule of pretzel logic. If something meets with your prejudices it “rings true” and if it “rings true” then it must be true on account of it comports with your pre-existing prejudices. It’s fine if you assume what it is that you are trying to prove as long as you provide sufficient rhetorical persiflage and/or logical legerdemain.
“Everybody knows what those boys are like”
“He is one of those boys”
Guilty! Q.E.D
Guilt by group identity!
David Begley - I agree about the de-facto sanctity of Roe for the reasons you give - but instead of kidnapping and murdering Kavanaugh's daughters if he, I suspect they would kidnap and forcibly artificially inseminate them. They'd call it poetic justice or something.
I am not normally like this. I'm so furious about this whole ridiculous circus I am resorting to ridiculous circus arguments too.
"This is not a good paraphrase of what I've said. I said if I had to say — and I don't — right then — for example if I had to make a bet — and I had no way to get more information, I'd pick the woman as being "closer to the truth." That isn't believing either person. It allows for both being off, but taking note of the breadth of Kavanaugh's denial, that he never did anything like that, ever. "
When it comes to purported attempted rape and murder a breadth of denial does not seem necessarily suspicious.
But then it also depends on if you view her accusations as him groping her or attempting to rape/kill her.
Althouse shades her feel to the former and ignores Ford's claim of the latter, and avoids any discussion on threading that needle.
Almost like she believes the 'attempting to rape/kill her' is hyperbole at best. Yet that does not cast a shadow on Ford being "closer to the truth".
and regarding "...if I had to say — and I don't — right then..."
Indeed you do not. But what you have said shows that you hope it is true enough to derail him. Which shows where 'cruel neutrality' falls on your priorities.
I am Laslo.
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