When Kavenaugh said in his 2006 confirmation hearing that he had nothing to do with the torture and detention policies of the Bush Administration, and we now know that he advised other Administration officials how Justice Kennedy would rule on such matters, do you take that into consideration when you evaluate his credibility?
Seems like a guy who will say a lot of things in confirmation hearings…
First, your standards of evidence for calling Ford a liar are hilariously lower than your standards of evidence for calling Kavenaugh a liar. Just absurdly lower.
Second, fear of flying IS NOT THE SAME as being unable to fly. My SO has a fear of flying but often goes on flights with me. Are you calling my SO a liar?
And forgetting that she talked about polygraphs 26 years ago seems perfectly believable. Pretend she’s Kavenaugh–now see how easy it is to believe that she forgot?
I’m not even vaguely familiar with his 2006 confirmation hearing.
What was the question asked?
You should check it out. That’s where he really cut his teeth in the lying to senators biz.
Let me just add a little to this: fear of flying kicks in a little if we’re, for example, flying for business or going on vacation. However, if it were a stressful situation already, like having to go testify in front of Congress on national TV, then fear of flying would kick in considerably harder.
Stress compounds stress, which is something anyone who put a little thought into it would realize.
But “putting a little thought into it” would make it more difficult to smear Ford with these absurd smears, so certain people deliberately choose not to “put a little thought into it”.
Plenty of people are afraid of flying, often to the point of panic attacks. When they want or need to travel, they drug up and use their cognitive-behavioral coping strategies, because they can’t walk to Australia. When some then freak out on the plane, I or someone like me who is trained in this sort of intervention quietly alerts a cabin steward and (in my case, at least) may well swap seats with someone for awhile to sit by the person and help them calm down with breathing exercises and the like. People CAN do things that they find frightening or aversive. The reality is that despite her concern about it, Dr. Ford managed to fly to the meeting. This should indicate the strength of her resolve in order to testify. It does not cast doubt on her statement that flying is aversive for her.
Well said.
It doesn’t seem to be moot to Ditka, otherwise I wouldn’t be discussing it. He seems to think he’s caught her out in a lie.
To be clear…
There is zero evidence that she was anything less than honest about fear of flying.
There is zero evidence that she was anything less than honest about a second front door.
There is a sliver evidence that she lied about about lie detectors. One anonymous person claims she lied.
On the other hand…
There are mountains of evidence that Kavanaugh lied. A lot. At pretty much every available opportunity.
Senator Durbin: At the time of the nomination, what did you know about Mr. Haynes’s role in crafting the administration’s detention and interrogation policies?
[context: William Haynes was the Department of Defense’s General Counsel from 2001 to 2008. In 2003, he was nominated to a circuit court position, though his nomination was controversial due to the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and in 2004 because of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Haynes was not confirmed for the appointment.]
Kavanaugh: Senator, I did not, I was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants or—and so I do not have the involvement with that.
And then also:
Senator Leahy: What about the documents relating to the administration’s policies and practice on torture; did you see anything about that, or did you first hear about that when you read about it in the paper?
Kavanaugh: I think with respect to the legal justifications or the policies relating to the treatment of detainees, I was not aware of any issues on that or the legal memos that subsequently came out until the summer, sometime in 2004 when there started to be news reports on that. This was not part of my docket, either in the Counsel’s Office or as Staff Secretary.
In 2007, the Washington Post won a Pulitzer Prize for a behind-the-scenes article on the White House debate on its detention policies. Link. It pointed directly at Kavanaugh for his experience clerking with Justice Kennedy, for which he shared his insight that Kennedy would not agree with certain aspects of the Bush policies.
Note that Leahy and Durbin’s questions were rather limited in scope, and Kavanaugh broadened the scope of the questions to say that he had nothing at all to do with detention policies. Obviously, if he is weighing in with White House officials in 2002 on how one justice would likely rule, that is totally incompatible with his assertion that he didn’t know anything about the policies until Abu Ghraib etc. started breaking in the press. And as just a matter of logic (though I admit this isn’t conclusive), it’s hard to believe that being the staff secretary to the President – who manages what gets put on the President’s desk – that he was thoroughly unaware of the Bush detention policies… to say nothing that previous to that he was an associate counsel to the President.
ETA: it continues to be a sham, as they run out the clock.
I find it telling that everything we’ve heard from Kavanaugh’s classmates has been negative, while none of Dr. Ford’s have said so much as a single bad word about her.
It goes to her credibility as a witness. Someone who has a genuine fear of flying doesn’t jet off to the South Pacific (or wherever) on vacation.
Vacations are supposed to be relaxing, not stressful.
I don’t agree. My wife has a pretty good fear of flying, but a real love of travel. We go all over, but she basically has a mild anxiety attack during every take off.
They need to talk to Ford to do what Flake requested, right?
How is it that they haven’t talked to her or even called her attorney, and it’s already Wed?
I had a “genuine” fear of flying, and yet I still flew on long flights, occasionally, for vacation, because my desire to be in that place overcame my fear of getting there. It doesn’t mean the fear just went away – but I faced it and got through it. I still would often look at alternatives like the train or bus when it was feasible.
Boy, is my face red! With embarrassment, that is. Before, I had been making dark insinuations about the Kav’s legal career, how it was entirely as an operative of the Republican Party. Turns out, that wasn’t so! In between his clerkships and his work for TeamBush. he worked for the law firm Kirkland and Ellis on two separate occasions, amounting to very nearly almost two years!
And, the second time, he was re-hired as a partner! Many a young lawyer spends years pursuing the bright, elusive butterfly of “partner” in an oinkish law firm. His hiring in that position can leave no doubt as to the wondrous talent so honored!
= wiki
Finally, in 2006, the same year the ABA downscaled his rating from Very Qualified to Qualified, he was finally confirmed and installed.
Well, bugger a duck! Here I was, thinking he was little more than a conservative apparatchik. promoted for his loyalty and ideological purity rather than any proven legal excellence! Turns out he has months and months of work at a genuine law firm!
Ummm… gee… I don’t know… <scratches head>
Could it be because they aren’t interested in what she has to say because the outcome of the so-called “investigation” has already been decided?
Nah. That couldn’t be it. :dubious:
Sure, that’s possible, but it means that vacations are a good enough reason, but testifying before the Senate isn’t. I suspect many folks would disagree that these priorities are correct.
If she’s Kavanaugh, it is definitive proof that she forgot because she was blacked-out drunk.
Regards,
Shodan