The Kavanaugh Mud-Wrestling Contest
So Kavanaugh was finally confirmed for the Supreme Court by a vote of 50 to 48, thus ending one of the worst mud-slinging campaigns in US political history. Nobody came clean out of this one.
It was understood from the start that the Democrats would oppose any candidate Trump proposed, for fear of having a "conservative" SCOTUS for the next 20 years or more, and of course in revenge for the GOP holding up Obama's judiciary choices, but in this case the partisan tactics reached the downright disgusting level -- enough to p!ss off a sizable number of the voters. What was Maxine Waters thinking when she ran around encouraging Antifaa and BLM, whipping up crowds to publicly harass elected officials -- and their staffs, and their families, in the hopes that this would pressure Congress into voting her way? Did congressional aide Jackson Cosko think that broadcasting the private health information of GOP senators would be glossed over as legitimate "free speech"? Did Senator Feinstein really believe that sitting on Dr. Ford's accusation for months, only to spring it just days before the scheduled confirmation vote wasn't an obvious political manipulation? Now of course I could be biased, having hated Feinstein ever since she rode to her big career break over the body of Harvey Milk, but the way she's behaved during this whole campaign is really ugly.
Now, to be sure, the worst witness against Kavanaugh turned out to be himself; in his testimony he lost his cool bigtime, ranting and whining like the very prep-school drunken frat-boy he's accused of being -- and he provably lied to Congress. In a less ferociously partisan squabble, those would have been reasons enough to vote him down. (I'm thinking of Bill Clinton telling Congress "I did not have sex with that woman"). The problem was that the Democrats had likewise dug their own graves with their own mouths so thoroughly that Congress couldn't trust them -- or their supposed voter support --either. The Democrats' antics actually made Kavanaugh look better by comparison!
Consider, there were holes and glitches in Dr. Ford's testimony that were never addressed, and should have been. If the Democrats had succeeded in stretching out the investigation -- hopefully until after the election, as they wanted to -- all of these might have been exposed, to the detriment of the Dems' post-election hopes. It could also be that the Dems have reason to worry about their expected "blue wave" come election time; after all, they're already spreading rumors that Russian and North Korean hackers are going to "steal the election for Trump" (on what evidence?), which implies that they're making excuses in advance for a bad loss.
Now the part of Ford's story that I find most intriguing is that at the age of 15 she managed to fight off a drunken 17-year-old frat-boy. This implies that, assuming the story is true, Kavanaugh was a very incompetent teenage rapist! His simply being a teenage frat-boy drunk wouldn't have been much of a scandal if he hadn't denied it before Congress. Even his tendency to lose his cool under pressure wouldn't have necessarily disqualified him. All of that put together didn't make him look worse than the Dems made themselves look with their foaming anti-Trump, anti-Kavanaugh hysteria.
Why did they let themselves go like that? Was it just because they really believed that Kavanaugh would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? Not even the furthest-right of Trump supporters actually thought there was a chance of that, whatever hopes and dreams they may have cherished. I have to wonder what the Dems were really afraid of. Am I just being Anarchist-Paranoid in thinking that the Dems have been planning a big gun-control push, and knew that a non-leftist SCOTUS would never support it?
Or could it be that the Dems have begun to realize that the old definitions of Right and Left have come unglued, that the media don't have the power they think they have, and the American electorate is much less predictable than the analysts and experts thought?
It was understood from the start that the Democrats would oppose any candidate Trump proposed, for fear of having a "conservative" SCOTUS for the next 20 years or more, and of course in revenge for the GOP holding up Obama's judiciary choices, but in this case the partisan tactics reached the downright disgusting level -- enough to p!ss off a sizable number of the voters. What was Maxine Waters thinking when she ran around encouraging Antifaa and BLM, whipping up crowds to publicly harass elected officials -- and their staffs, and their families, in the hopes that this would pressure Congress into voting her way? Did congressional aide Jackson Cosko think that broadcasting the private health information of GOP senators would be glossed over as legitimate "free speech"? Did Senator Feinstein really believe that sitting on Dr. Ford's accusation for months, only to spring it just days before the scheduled confirmation vote wasn't an obvious political manipulation? Now of course I could be biased, having hated Feinstein ever since she rode to her big career break over the body of Harvey Milk, but the way she's behaved during this whole campaign is really ugly.
Now, to be sure, the worst witness against Kavanaugh turned out to be himself; in his testimony he lost his cool bigtime, ranting and whining like the very prep-school drunken frat-boy he's accused of being -- and he provably lied to Congress. In a less ferociously partisan squabble, those would have been reasons enough to vote him down. (I'm thinking of Bill Clinton telling Congress "I did not have sex with that woman"). The problem was that the Democrats had likewise dug their own graves with their own mouths so thoroughly that Congress couldn't trust them -- or their supposed voter support --either. The Democrats' antics actually made Kavanaugh look better by comparison!
Consider, there were holes and glitches in Dr. Ford's testimony that were never addressed, and should have been. If the Democrats had succeeded in stretching out the investigation -- hopefully until after the election, as they wanted to -- all of these might have been exposed, to the detriment of the Dems' post-election hopes. It could also be that the Dems have reason to worry about their expected "blue wave" come election time; after all, they're already spreading rumors that Russian and North Korean hackers are going to "steal the election for Trump" (on what evidence?), which implies that they're making excuses in advance for a bad loss.
Now the part of Ford's story that I find most intriguing is that at the age of 15 she managed to fight off a drunken 17-year-old frat-boy. This implies that, assuming the story is true, Kavanaugh was a very incompetent teenage rapist! His simply being a teenage frat-boy drunk wouldn't have been much of a scandal if he hadn't denied it before Congress. Even his tendency to lose his cool under pressure wouldn't have necessarily disqualified him. All of that put together didn't make him look worse than the Dems made themselves look with their foaming anti-Trump, anti-Kavanaugh hysteria.
Why did they let themselves go like that? Was it just because they really believed that Kavanaugh would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? Not even the furthest-right of Trump supporters actually thought there was a chance of that, whatever hopes and dreams they may have cherished. I have to wonder what the Dems were really afraid of. Am I just being Anarchist-Paranoid in thinking that the Dems have been planning a big gun-control push, and knew that a non-leftist SCOTUS would never support it?
Or could it be that the Dems have begun to realize that the old definitions of Right and Left have come unglued, that the media don't have the power they think they have, and the American electorate is much less predictable than the analysts and experts thought?
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