I think I see where the disconnect is between liberals and conservatives on this issue.
When conservatives don’t like somebody and want to make that person’s life difficult they will make something up and repeat the lie until it sticks. Don’t like the President? Claim he’s from Kenya. Don’t like the reality that is school shootings? Blame “crisis actors”. Don’t like Ted Cruz? Claim his dad shot JFK. Trump and his cronies love doing this because they have figured out that it doesn’t matter if something is true or not, only that people believe it. So there is a line of thought (expressed in this very thread) that Kavanaugh will be derailed by a false rape accusation and the next nominee will be derailed by a false rape allegation and so on because that’s how conservatives would do it and they cannot believe that their opponents would hesitate to use the same trick.
FWIW, with the extreme polarization of politics in the US, every nominee for everything is going to be investigated back to preschool and every single one of them (regardless of party) who set a foot wrong anywhere ever will be made to answer for it by the opposing side. Both parties need to ask all nominees early and often if there is anything at all that can be used against them because if you have enough footage of Santa Claus you can cut it to make him look like an asshole and that is not a bug, it is a feature.
From the liberal side, there is an assumption that the victim is telling the truth because the alternatives do not follow. This woman was literally nobody last week, had a safe and boring professional career and probably lived in comfort and security. Now she’s on the news every day, she’s got people hacking and doxxing her and she’s being threatened with death over speaking up. Who signs up for that and why? What are the Democrats going to give her in exchange for this? And how do you approach someone, ask them to be a fake rape victim who will be crucified in front of a live television audience and get them to agree? What if she said no? What if she recorded the Democratic operatives talking to her about this false accusation she was going to get paid to make? It doesn’t make sense for someone to willingly put themselves in this kind of position unless there was some major incentive involved. And as anyone who has ever tried to buy the silence of a porn star would know, that leaves a paper trail. It may be difficult to prove that Ford is telling the truth but it should be trivial to prove that she is lying if that turns out to be the case.
All in all, as we are not the finders of fact in this matter we can only speculate. Which is more likely? Kavanaugh was a horny drunk teenager who took it too far? Or Ford is a lying, scheming operative of the Democrats who willingly threw her life away to try to interfere with a Supreme Court nomination that might just go through regardless?
It should be noted that Dr. Ford wanted this to be done anonymously to avoid blowblack on herself, and perhaps naively believed she should could levy such an accusation against a prominent figure in the national arena without that happening. She was, of course, gravely mistaken. Oops.
And your seeming assertion that Republicans have a lock on smear campaigns and character assassination of political opponents is, no offense, laughable. I’m going to be charitable and assume you have never owned a television, and thus have never seen an attack ad. I’m not saying it’s right, but it permeates politics and is old as the freakin hills (as old than the United States, in any case, cite).
The real fun is going to start 20 years from now.
When the first social media generation starts reaching the age of political power.
Just how manh old tweets and FB posts are going to sink careers.
In 20 years, you’ll be considered unfit and hiding something if you DON’T have shit sprayed all over the place.
Assuming there’s still elections, if you’re running for office, you’ll probably be able to enable a vote button on everything you ever posted. So that pic of you holding a tiki torch at Charlottesville? Becomes a campaign ad with a vote button on it.
Oh, that’s right: the conservatives on this board have a talented crew of mind-readers, able to discern the intents and motivations of people they’ve never interacted with. :rolleyes:
I don’t see that ‘seeming assertion.’ And I doubt anyone here would argue that no Dem ever steps over the line into smears and character assassination.
The difference is that, on the right, a disconnect from reality in what they’re willing to say about their opponents has been normalized. Nobody on that side of the political spectrum expects or demands that criticism of Dem officeholders and candidates, or policies they propose, have any grounding in reality. The only thing that matters is if it helps win the political fight of the moment.
Oddly enough, the ‘liberal’ media pretty much reinforces this. Oh, their Politifacts and other ratings of the dishonesty of statements come down a bit harder on the right. But on the whole, they jump on Dems for (often pretty thin) offenses against the truth, because they expect the Dems to be generally trustworthy, but they rarely criticize right-wing lies because if they gave them proper attention, they’d never have time for anything else. So they don’t bother unless a Republican says something particularly egregious. The refs haven’t so much been ‘worked’ as overwhelmed.
I will attempt to answer as if this was asked seriously. It would not have been as credible if it had stayed anonymous, or if the person who made the accusation turned out to have been someone who was not living and socializing in the same circles at the same time. It is more credible for having been mentioned to another party (her therapist) in the past.
Just in general, we already know that pussy-grabbing and worse is not a deal-breaker for loyal Republicans, neither are blatant race-baiting or fraud or lying or selling out to the KGB. We’re still wondering what the rock bottom really *is *for you folks - and so far all we have is “Republican”. Is there any reassurance otherwise that you can provide? Any of you?
BTW, I’m a libtard and a card-carrying member. If dems somehow manage to stall past the midterms, take the Senate, and pay back for Garland, I’m good with that, it’ll be justice in that sense. I wish they had had a different device to do it with.
The idea that she can set the rules of procedure at all is outrageous. She is a witness, not the rulemakers. This Monday versus Thursday versus Wednesday is simply a power play. This is the U.S. Senate, not a doctor’s appointment. Be there when it is scheduled.
Further, it is terribly disingenuous to want to testify after Kavanaugh. What possible reason could there be for that other than to let him deny what you have already said and then spring additional things on him that he will not have the chance to rebut?
Simply asking for such a thing lowers her credibility in my eyes and in many others. Does anyone on this board think it is fair not to allow Kavanaugh a chance to rebut her testimony?
Objecting to outside counsel. Again, who in the hell is she to dictate procedure? Further, there can be no other reason for that than she wants to give Booker, Kamala Harris, and Hirono a national spotlight to continue to smear Kavanaugh with outrageous attacks and to “question” her by telling her how wonderfully courageously courageous she is.
Of course, this is purposeful. Grassley will look like an ass if he doesn’t accommodate which day of the week she would like to testify, and by now bowing to every demand, he will be accused of “re-victimizing” her.
This politicization and weaponization of sexual assault accusations will have a negative effect on future victims. Whether this happened to Ford or not, people are seeing this as a political game.
The Republicans in the Senate – refusing to conduct a full investigation – are the ones not taking this seriously, and making it a political game. The non-political and serious way to handle this would be to delay a vote for a full objective investigation into these allegations. The only concerns about timing are political. There’s no deadline except a political deadline.
The Democrats are using this for political advantage too, but they have the advantage of having the non-political and serious way to handle this as being potentially political advantageous. The Republicans don’t get to make excuses for not doing the right thing just because doing the right thing might be politically risky.
Well, first of all, the witnesses shouldn’t hear each other testify, because it’ll alter their testimony. The second witness would have the opportunity to alter his/her testimony to aim at refuting the first witness’ testimony, and the first witness would have to practice ‘defensive testifying’ to minimize the ways the second witness could make use of his/her testimony in her/his own testimony.
But assuming that, ISTM to make a great deal of sense for Ford to testify last. We know that the Republicans on the committee, and their staffs, are pretty much lined up behind Kavanaugh. They are allies. While the Dems on the committee certainly feel sympathy for Ford, they have no alliance, no working relationship. If Ford testifies first, the likelihood is far greater that sympathetic staff will get word to Kavanaugh, by text or other means, of what Ford is saying, than the likelihood that anyone will similarly inform Ford if Kavanaugh testifies first.
In Ford’s position, I would insist on being second to testify, unless while I was testifying, they had Kavanaugh locked in an apartment that was shielded from electronic communications, which seems kind of excessive when simply being able to testify second accomplishes the same end.
Really? You think that a person being charged should not hear the actual stuff he’s being charged with? You think it’s a problem that he will change his testimony based on hearing what he’s charged with and that’s a bad thing? I would say that’s only fair, and it’s a good thing. If you want to argue that she should be allowed to speak again after Kavanaugh, that would be one thing. Let them both testify twice, if needed, but he has to be able to hear what she is charging him with so he can address it.
But this isn’t a criminal proceeding. It’s a proceeding designed to get at the truth. The party with something at stake here is “we, the people,” and only incidentally Brett Kavanaugh. Ford and Kavanaugh are witnesses, not plaintiff and defendant. They should not be privy to one another’s testimony before their own testimony.
Sure, an opportunity for each to respond to the other’s testimony the next day, or later the same day if that allows enough time, would be fine. And I’m good with either order for that.
What are these “several things”? First, everyone that she has named has denied being at such a party. She cannot remember any details at all, except that she had only one beer, that would corroborate or not corroborate her allegations.
I see absolutely nothing which corroborates her story. Again, not to say that it did not happen. I don’t know. Nobody in this thread knows. But I see absolutely zero corroboration and the independent evidence, the witnesses, lean against her.
For those of us inclined to see sexual assault and rape as a very serious problem that is far, far more important than political concerns, the statements to her therapist and husband, Mark Judge’s writings about his own and friends’ drunken bad behavior, and the statements from her friends noting how much she changed after the incident (which they weren’t aware of at the time), add up as making the allegations credible enough that they should be taken seriously.
Of course, for anyone who sees this merely as an opportunity to get a conservative on the SCOTUS, and that anything that might possibly delay that should be seen in the most negative/dishonest light as possible, and that sexual assault and rape in society is a relatively minor thing compared to that, these pieces of data aren’t likely to be seen as convincing.
If Kavanaugh is innocent, an investigation really could help him. Hard as you might find it to believe, there are plenty of us who don’t know for certain what happened, and could be swayed in one direction or another by a full and objective investigation. Not everyone has already made up their mind.