# Can Democrats actually stop the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 4, 2018, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733 "2018-09-04T12:49:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 52
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1021 "2018-09-17T02:16:08Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > I don’t think she should be “forced” either, but if she doesn’t want to testify this week, I don’t think the committee should delay action on the nomination. She’s the one that chose to wait until the very last minute to come forward. False, she wrote to Feinstein in July. July. Then Professor Ford took a polygraph test in early August, on the advice of a lawyer. This isn’t the last minute. The FBI can investigate the allegations - as they should regardless. There is no rush. America deserves America’s best judicial talent on the highest court of the land. Patriots cheer for serious deliberation on serious decisions. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1022 "2018-09-17T02:18:11Z")
I agree, but this depends on her being willing to talk to the FBI. If she’s not, then there’s just no further reason to hold this up. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1023 "2018-09-17T02:20:32Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > That she can’t remember key details about the incident. …Is that unusual in cases of sexual assault? > [@](#): > > She’s not sure about where or when it happened, or how she got there or home. > **[California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/california-professor-writer-of-confidential-brett-kavanaugh-letter-speaks-out-about-her-allegation-of-sexual-assault/2018/09/16/46982194-b846-11e8-94eb-3bd52dfe917b_story.html?utm_term=.b35e084450d7)** > > Christine Blasey Ford alleges that Kavanaugh attacked her more than three decades ago when they were each in high school, an allegation Kavanaugh has flatly denied. > [@Washington Post](#): > > Speaking publicly for the first time, Ford said that one summer in the early 1980s, Kavanaugh and a friend — both “stumbling drunk,” Ford alleges — corralled her into a bedroom during a gathering of teenagers at a house in Montgomery County. > > … > > Ford said she does not remember how the gathering came together the night of the incident. She said she often spent time in the summer at the Columbia Country Club pool in Chevy Chase, where in those pre-cellphone days, teenagers learned about gatherings via word of mouth. She also doesn’t recall who owned the house or how she got there. What is it, in particular, that you don’t find credible in this statement? If questioned could you tell us who owned the house of every party you went to 30 years ago? > [@](#): > > She said she believes it occurred in the summer of 1982, when she was 15, around the end of her sophomore year at the all-girls Holton-Arms School in Bethesda. Kavanaugh would have been 17 at the end of his junior year at Georgetown Prep. It was my birthday a couple of days ago. I had to ask my mum “am I 44 or 45?” She didn’t know the answer. I had to use my fingers to figure it out. I have plenty of vivid memories of traumatic things that happened to me in my lifetime and I don’t have the foggiest how old I was when they happened. And I’ve just tried to out how old I was for one particular incident: and I just can’t do it. It was either 1996 or 97. I think, I’m not quite sure. So if I’m having trouble nailing down how old I was when something traumatic happened to me, it doesn’t surprise me at all that somebody else would have the same issue. > [@](#): > > She said she locked herself in the bathroom and listened until she heard the boys “going down the stairs, hitting the walls.” She said that after five or 10 minutes, she unlocked the door and made her way through the living room and outside. She isn’t sure how she got home. Does it strike you as credible that she would invent the details of the assault but fail to invent a method of getting home? If she had said “I walked home and nobody saw me” would that make her statement more credible in your eyes? What is the material difference between the two statements? I’m not suggesting you believe her. But you asked iiandyiiii "what makes you call them “credible”? And the answer is that there is nothing in Christine Blasey Ford’s background that would suggest she would make something like this up, that the things you are quibbling are literally quibbles, they aren’t really unreasonable and don’t dent her credibility. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1024 "2018-09-17T02:27:02Z")
To me what makes it credible is that she named a second person, which is really going out on a limb if you’re lying. She also told her therapist about it years ago. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1025 "2018-09-17T02:38:56Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Heard a plausible story about that, the veracity of which I dunno. Jist being that the list of character witnesses is the result of several different standard government background checks. Business references, stuff like that there, on various such forms. I heard the same thing, and I think it was either from PBS or from their Washington reporter on another show. Heard on CNN that Grassley is trying to arrange a telephone interview with Ford on Monday. On the one hand, I wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to go further than she has, but on the other hand, if you’re going to accuse someone like this of sexual assault, you should be prepared to back up the claim publicly if you want folks to act on your accusation. And now the crazies are threatening her, personally. Ugh. Any chance Trump is going to ask his supporters to lay off? (That was a rhetorical question, of course.) Oh, and yeah, what gives her added credibility is having told her therapist about this 6 years ago. If she was just making shit up, that would not have happened. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1026 "2018-09-17T03:30:41Z")
Republicans have to either go all in and fully stand behind him or quickly abandon him to try to ram through someone else. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1027 "2018-09-17T03:49:59Z")
Politically, you’re right. Morally, they should all be Jeff Flake. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1028 "2018-09-17T03:55:08Z")
I was assuming that train had sailed already. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1029 "2018-09-17T04:00:40Z")
Of course it has. They are politicians doing what politicians do: considering politics. Corker and Flake aren’t running for reelection. If they were, they’d probably just vote like any other Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1030 "2018-09-17T04:03:43Z")
Dr Paingloss, and the worst of all possible worlds. Kavanaugh has a problem with the wimmens, because they see him as an anti-choice partisan, and these hearings have offered no comfort. Add to that the stink of sexual predator that will waft over these hearings. Also, he fibs. (If she testifies, got a nickel says some Republican frames a question like how _provocatively_ was she dressed?) Gonna get ugly. Have to take cold comfort that it falls upon the richly deserving. ---
**Author:** ![Fiveyearlurker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@Fiveyearlurker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiveyearlurker)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1031 "2018-09-17T04:11:17Z")
Does anyone have any doubt that the GOP would attempt to ram through this or any other nominee in a lame duck session in which they had already lost the senate despite all their proclamations about the will of the voters? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1032 "2018-09-17T04:20:34Z")
Now that she’s come forward, I think they should delay to determine first if there is any way to validate her claims. If there is, they should do so. If there isn’t, they should acknowledge that and hold the vote. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1033 "2018-09-17T04:38:58Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > twitter already deleted that page but I guess others will appear Only after it was up for \*several \*hours despite many, \*many \*take down requests. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1034 "2018-09-17T04:40:17Z")
I feel like we’re seeing one important point that shouldn’t pass by in the discussion of rape cases. **John Mace** said it was a hole in her story that she remembered only having one beer that night. **HurricaneDitka** questioned the story because she “didn’t remember key details”. These objections are both making gross assumptions about what someone would remember about trauma. Except they’re making them in the opposite directions. Neither, to my knowledge, is based on any actual scientific investigation of what people actually remember from trauma, but rather on the intuitions of two _men_ who have never been the victim of sexual assault. I feel like this should be highlighted, because it’s just a little fucked up. You just can’t win as a victim of sexual assault. This is why one of the mantras of the #metoo movement is “we believe you”. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1035 "2018-09-17T04:49:29Z")
Yeah, I’m not really convinced of that yet. Let’s see when their values are actually tested, like when a Democratic candidate for President is accused in September 2020. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1036 "2018-09-17T04:55:50Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Yeah, I’m not really convinced of that yet. Let’s see when their values are actually tested, like when a Democratic candidate for President is accused in September 2020. Um… Al Franken? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1037 "2018-09-17T05:01:03Z")
While it hurt to lose Franken, it’s a blue state and he was eminently expendable. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1038 "2018-09-17T05:11:17Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Yes, one who wrote a book about how black out drunk he was at all these parties. One who wrote a book characterizing O’Kavanaugh himself as a less than stellar actor. > > Having him as corroborating witness is like hitching a ride on Willie Nelson’s bus to your drug screening. One whose high school yearbook quote was “some women need to be beaten frequently like a gong.” ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1039 "2018-09-17T05:56:58Z")
Is it in Republicans’ best interest to confirm him quickly at this point? The man is not popular. No persuadable voter is going to rush to the polls to thank their Republican senator for voting for him. So, why confirm him a month before the midterm and risk having other shoes drop in between? One of the reasons the Mark Foley scandal was so bad, in addition to the timing, was the feeling that a bunch of people had been warned but had done nothing about it. Now, if something else comes out, Republican senators have been warned about Brett Kavanaugh but are setting themselves up to do nothing about it. Why risk it when they’ll have another two months of consequence-free voting after the election? I get that he’ll be a reliable vote on the court, but he’ll still be one if he misses the first month of his first term. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2018, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733/1040 "2018-09-17T06:06:11Z")
> [@Lord\_Feldon](#): > > Is it in Republicans’ best interest to confirm him quickly at this point? The man is not popular. No persuadable voter is going to rush to the polls to thank their Republican senator for voting for him. So, why confirm him a month before the midterm and risk having other shoes drop in between? One of the reasons the Mark Foley scandal was so bad, in addition to the timing, was the feeling that a bunch of people had been warned but had done nothing about it. Now, if something else comes out, Republican senators have been warned about Brett Kavanaugh but are setting themselves up to do nothing about it. Why risk it when they’ll have another two months of consequence-free voting after the election? I get that he’ll be a reliable vote on the court, but he’ll still be one if he misses the first month of his first term. They might also think that do than and if we lose the election and not get a chance for years. Over allegations which are at this moment extremely thin (and that’s being generous)? And no one shouting against Kavanaugh on this issue supports confirming him anyway. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733.md?page=51) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-democrats-actually-stop-the-nomination-of-brett-kavanaugh/820733.md?page=53)