Agreed.
Disagreed.
When he was 17 he shouldn’t have been on the Supreme Court. It’s 35 years since then. What he cared or didn’t care about then has very little bearing on how he would rule on anything now.
He’s been in the public eye for many years already.
And even now, with passions inflamed and millions of dollars being spent, the best anyone could come up with is a 35 year old allegation.
If we knew for a fact that he attempted rape as a 17-year-old, I would not support his nomination to the SCOTUS. I doubt, though, that we could know that for a fact without a confession from him due to the time lapse between the alleged act and now. If we could know such things “for a fact”, there wouldn’t be a statute of limitations. And if he confessed, I would expect him to withdraw his nomination.
Also, I would hesitate to jump to “attempted rape” based only on “he tried to force himself on me”. I would want a more definitive statement from the woman.
I’m amazed that people still trust the system enough to say things like “any allegations would have come out by now”. The last year or so should put that ridiculous notion to rest for a long, long time.
I don’t know about “for a fact”, but I assume everyone who knew him back in HS is going to be interviewed to see if/what they knew about this allegation at the time.
The other guy allegedly involved is known (and claims no recollection, FWIW). So I assume reporters will be able to track down everyone who could have known about it.
If Kavanaugh was actually a rapist or an attempted rapist, I’d say dump him. There are plenty of non-rapists that are well qualified. The problem is this allegation is incredibly thin as it is a few steps removed from an actual accuser, and it’s so old. With that fact pattern it’s unlikely that anything that arises from it would be actionable and as a result it makes it seem more like a smear/delay tactic/Democratic flailing than anything else.
Better not investigate it, then. That’d be a terrible thing. Might actually find something out!
Is that really a hill you’re willing to die on?
The letter was sent in July. If Democrats really wanted it investigated, they shouldn’t have held the letter in secret until the last minute.
The proper way to investigate it is for a person to go to law enforcement, not sitting senators at a judicial nomination hearing. If the matter is referred to law enforcement - let them do their jobs and the cards fall where they may. Given Feinstein sat on the information for a while, I’m inclined to believe it Democratic flailing. Can you think of a reason why she waited?
Don’t you think it would have been sent to Grassley too? As the chairman, yanno.
What else is in the documentation he insists must be kept secret from us?
Which brings to mind the 65 women the GOP was able to track down who knew him at the time.
Georgetown Prep was and is an all-boys’ school. I was in another all-boys’ school in the same athletic conference as Georgetown Prep in junior high and the first couple of years of high school. Even though it wasn’t a boarding school and we at least shared our school buses with a sister school, I doubt that I had enough contact with 65 girls while attending that school who would have been able to say anything meaningful about me at the time, let alone a few decades later.
“He said ‘hi’ to me at a dance once. He was a perfect gentleman in that brief encounter.”
No, I don’t. It doesn’t appear that Grassley was the one keeping it secret from us.
from Dianne Feinstein refers Kavanaugh matter to federal authorities - CBS News
You said yourself that this would be disqualifying, if true. I presume you mean for personal character reasons. If so – if personal character is an important issue for SCOTUS nominations – then it seems like it would be entirely appropriate for the committee to fully (and publicly) investigate these allegations, at the very least to ensure there is no stain on Kavanugh’s legitimacy going forward.
I agree! However, ‘Democrats’ just found out about the letter.
AFAICT, ‘Democrats’ Senator Feinstein and Rep. Anna Eshoo both knew about it previously.
If something needs to be investigated, you don’t bring it up at the last minute, unless you are using it as a delaying tactic. Sorry, Democrats, but it would appear that Feinstein may have let you down.
Really, I’m not surprised that the Republican Senators want to ignore this, but I’m slightly saddened that so many Dopers have no interest as well. Just another indication of how tolerant we are as a society of sexual assault. That political considerations don’t just outweigh such allegations, but they outweigh such allegations to such a great degree that they must not be investigated if such an investigation might have the slightest conflict with political goals.
Ahh, then feel free to ignore it. Things didn’t go perfectly, so it must be bullshit. Always easy to find such rationalizations. Better than actually spending some effort on an investigation, right? What a terrible thing that would be!
There is virtually no circumstance that can come to pass which would be sufficient to determine the truth of the alleged allegation. People like Harris and Booker have already exhausted any leeway that may have existed in taking the actions of Democrats involved seriously. The whole, we should just do more investigations schtick rings completely hollow.
I’ve suggested earlier, in post #714.
This seems to be validated by reporting on the issue which says