This baffles me as well. If I try to be as charitable as possible to Dr. Ford, I assume that doing so was therapeutic for her in some way. I’m open to other, charitable explanations but that’s the best I can come up with.
Charitable interpretation:
Dr. Ford had something horrible happen to her, wanted to do her civic duty and tell someone involved in the nomination/selection process about it, but wasn’t at all prepared for the media exposure that would inevitably occur, especially if it was just her. She was hoping that the letter would be enough to either prompt a deeper investigation that would possibly dig up a bunch of other fellow accusers (allowing her to shed her anonymity if she chose to) or perhaps by itself be the straw that broke the back of the nomination outright.
Possibly that she was extremely naive about the way Washington works? She did, after all, write the letter originally to her Congressperson. If she remembered some basic civics, she might have recalled that the House of Representatives doesn’t deal with judicial nominations.
Much the same thing as with Anita Hill - she thought/hoped that an anonymous accusation would be enough to get Kavanaugh to withdraw. And, she was naïve enough to believe that the rhetoric about respecting the confidentiality of victims was going to mean something, even when compared with the chance of throwing a stink bomb into the process. Presumably she knows better now.
I don’t know how charitable that is, but it makes sense whether she believed herself or not. Whether she wanted to stop the nom purely out of political spite, or because she honestly thought it was him that attacked all those years ago, best-case scenario for her is to stay unknown - she would have got what she wanted either way.
Regards,
Shodan
From Dr. Ford’s letter…
She had no expectation that it would be secret forever.
I’m more curious about what Ford was expecting.
Obviously, she would not have sent that letter if she didn’t expect anything to come of it. She did not want Kavanaugh on the court. That could not happen if this was meant for Feinstein’s eyes only. If it was for Feinstein’s eyes only, the only thing Feinstein could do was not vote for Kavanaugh, which she wasn’t going to do anyway.
We know that Feinstein could have forwarded the letter to the FBI immediately if she thought it had any merit, and that the investigation between Ford and Kavanaugh could have happened behind the scenes. I very much doubt it would have amounted to anything, but it could at least potentially do something besides alter a single Senator’s vote, and Ford would have had a much better chance at remaining anonymous.
Why didn’t Feinstein do that?
[quote=“Shodan, post:3, topic:822661”]
And their respective staffs. Dr. Ford said she only went public after she had been outed against her will, which kind of narrows down the list of possible leakers.
/QUOTE]
As far as I understand it, Ford had also, after she sent the letter, told friends she had done so and why. The story that there was a letter could have been leaked by one of them.
Have you read her letter? Have you read the bit I quoted a couple posts ago?
She didn’t want Feinstein sworn to secrecy for life. She wanted Feinstein to be aware of the matter and possibly open a dialogue about it.
Why is the word of the Intercept not enough? Just because the source is anonymous to the public doesn’t mean the source is anonymous to them.
It would be highly unusual for any credible news organization to accept the word of an anonymous source without verifying the validity of the source – including the identity of that source.
So either the Intercept is lying – not a good thing for their credibility, and you shouldn’t accept their claim at all one way or the other – or they’re not lying and credible, in which case you have to accept their assertion that the anonymous source is not Feinstein or her staff.
Or they are lying to protect their source.
Washington DC is a city of leaks. This was a juicy one. Protect the source of the juice (it was probably a staffer either of Feinstein’s or Eshoo’s), and hope for further morsels down the line.
Regards,
Shodan
Most credible journalists don’t lie. They simply say, “No comment.” That’s not what happened here. The affirmatively denied it.
You’d have to make your case that they lied.
They said that no one from Feinstein’s office gave them the letter. That’s a pretty wide and imprecise statement.
You think that political staffers don’t know how to leak in a way that it is deniable for all parties even after investigation?
There are about a dozen ways someone on Feinstein’s staff could have leaked the informations and still have The Intercept truthfully say no one from Feinstein’s office leaked it.
Not exactly. You asked
Because I am not prepared to accept them as credible in this instance.
I am not claiming I could prove it in a court of law. If the idea is that they would never stoop to such depravity as lying to protect a source, well, your belief in the stainless honor of the press corps, who would never, ever do anything untoward to foment a scandal is touching in a way all too rare in this naughty world.
Regards,
Shodan
IOW, the information doesn’t support the narrative you want to push.
If you think they’re prone to lying, I wonder why you accept them as credible ever.
Yup. And if/when you have actual proof of that, your entire argument will have some basis in fact. Unless/until then, lots and lots of things are possible.
Funny how conservatives believe Kavanaugh when he says he never blacked out despite liking beer liking beer liking beer liking beer liking beer (did I mention liking beer?) but won’t believe a journalist when they say that they got something from a different source.
I’d like to say that something about the intellectual acrobatics required to believe the things they do surprises me… but it no longer does.
I’m not sure what finding the leaker solves. I suppose it is damaging to Feinstein if she is proved to be the one who did it but she has weathered worse and will carry on. If it is an intercept reporter it may end that reporter’s career. Or perhaps a fall-guy on staff. In the end it does not change much except to scare future leakers.
As to what the person hoped to achieve they almost certainly wanted to derail the Kavanaugh nomination.
That was almost impossible to happen though. Republicans wanted to see to it Kavanaugh got affirmed before the midterms and Trump almost certainly wants Kavanaugh in particular for his expansive views on the executive (something I think Roberts shares to an extent).
Republicans are pretty shameless when it comes to caring about sexual impropriety among their members. Even pedophiles are tolerated. Short of some smoking-gun evidence to crucify Kavanaugh with nothing was going to stop republicans from getting him on the court.
Perhaps the allegations will rally the democrat base but then it served to rally the republican base too. Maybe even a little more (there is a discussion about that around here somewhere) although it seems to not have done a whole lot either way.
Maybe Taylor Swift decided to become political because of this. That had some noticeable impact in getting young voters to register.
There are very few news sources who I will accept at face value, without checking it against other sources where possible, and without taking their possible motives into consideration. YMMV.
Regards,
Shodan
Okay, so why didn’t Feinstein talk to her? All I’ve heard is that Feinstein’s staff said it was “taken care of”. I still do not know what that means.