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Maybe. I would argue after watching the hearing that anyone who so blatantly ignores the obvious intent of questions asked of them, rather than attempting to p

by RickS 8y ago

Maybe. I would argue after watching the hearing that anyone who so blatantly ignores the obvious intent of questions asked of them, rather than attempting to pursue and convey the truth in earnest, regardless of their guilt, is unqualified to enforce justice at the highest level in America. I struggle to imagine a credible reason to look past this conduct, and would be interested in hearing a take on it. To be clear, I don't have a take on whether he's guilty, and I don't think it particularly matters. I'm operating based solely on his bad-faith responses to interview questions. It could be argued that the questions asked of him were themselves in bad faith, but that doesn't seem like it should change anything, since it's critical for a judge to be resilient to bad faith questioning, rather than sinking to that level and rolling in the mud. If a person has a different take that involves him being levelheaded, truthful, nonpartisan in the face of immense partisanship, and dedicated to the pursuit of justice, then no, it is not extremist to support him. If a person can recognize him as being at all deficient in any of those categories and yet supports his nomination out of partisan dedication, despite intellectual qualities that should disqualify him, I would classify that as extreme.

chrisco255 8y ago
We have to presume Kavanaugh's innocence because no witness has come forward to corroborate any claims. In the meantime, the Democrats skewered a man for every inside joke he made in his High school yearbook with his buddies. They were picking apart his actions as a child. They weren't asking questions related to the allegations. They were trying to assassinate his character. That's fucked up I don't care who you are. Who would like to sit on trial for things you said 40 years ago? And have a mass media misinterpret everything out of context? It's fucking primitive. Who wouldn't lose their composure? Only a cool, level headed liar like Bill Clinton could pull that off.
- RickS 8y ago
  My comment was specific and deliberate in presuming his innocence, which, to reiterate, I do. I was also deliberate in my pointing-out that many of the questions asked of him could be perceived as being in bad faith. Whether that's so is quite subjective. Your "inside joke" is other people's "description of a sex act". For the same reason we can't truly know Kav's innocence or guilt, we can't know whether the jokes are harmful or not. I want to point out a distinction that I made, that I'm not sure you're making: I don't discredit Kavanaugh because he "lost his cool". I too would most certainly be crying in that situation, without a doubt. But when Leahy pressed him, repeatedly over a span of excruciatingly long minutes, to explicitly request and comply with an investigation, and Kavanaugh dodged and bent over backwards to avoid doing such a thing, I found it difficult to understand how a person interested in the truth could behave in that way. A SCOTUS judge should be wiling to be investigated, and expected to survive such a thing.
  - chrisco255 8y ago
    Not if all standards of due process and normal jurisprudence were thrown out the fucking window. These allegations were held in the pocket as a political football instead of being handed over to a bipartisan committee and investigated by the FBI from the get go. Feinstein's unethical manipulation of this allegation in the handling of Dr. Ford and outright lies about her alleged fear of flying in order to prevent her being forensically interviewed, like a normal case, are inexcusable. The Democrats had two months to hatch a plan while Kavanaugh's life got turned upside down in less than a week. That's a legal ambush, complete with an angry mob. It's not just at all.
  - jcadam 8y ago
    > But when Leahy pressed him, repeatedly over a span of excruciatingly long minutes, to explicitly request and comply with an investigation, and Kavanaugh dodged and bent over backwards to avoid doing such a thing Because it was an obvious trap and he was right to avoid stepping into it.
- g8oz 8y ago
  >>We have to presume Kavanaugh's innocence because no witness has come forward to corroborate any claims. By the standards of criminal proceedings, yes. But this is a job interview, the standards for disqualifying someone are lower.
  - firic 8y ago
    Imagine if every time you wanted to apply for a competitive job you would get rejected simply because some woman claimed that you raped her.
    - eigenstuff 8y ago
      Well, if you don't rape someone, generally that's not something you need to worry about.
      - firic 8y ago
        Did Kavanaugh rape someone? I don't know. Are you 100% sure that he did? If not, lets assume that he didn't. Your statement is now wrong since he is worrying about that.
        krapp 8y ago
        >If not, lets assume that he didn't. Your statement is now wrong since he is worrying about that. "generally that's not something you need to worry about" is not a statement claiming that it's never something anyone, ever needs to worry about. It is still true that in general if you don't rape someone, you don't need to worry about being accused of having raped someone, because false rape accusations are statistically unlikely.
  - jcadam 8y ago
    > But this is a job interview This makes me angry every time I read it. A failed job interview usually means you can just go back to whatever it was you were doing before you applied, none the worse for wear. A job interview shouldn't require you to defend yourself against scurrilous personal attacks which result in you becoming an unemployable social pariah if you fail.
SiVal 8y ago
blatantly ignores the obvious intent of questions asked of them The "obvious intent of the questions" is to block his nomination by any means they can come up with, as was made clear months ago by the protest signs printed with a blank where the name would be inserted just as soon as the name of the nominee was announced. Anyone who blatantly ignores the obvious intent of these questions has an agenda other than finding the actual facts.
- RickS 8y ago
  I'm going to make a distinction here, between "what they're asking" and "why they're asking". Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right about "why they're asking:", and he's being asked questions that are intentionally constructed to lead to dark places, trip him up, and paint him in a negative light. Nevertheless, I think any layperson can detect "what they're asking". A person interviewed for SCOTUS, in my view, must still give a straight answer to a question asked in bad faith. Ill intent on the part of (D) committee members does not justify intentionally incomplete answers that intentionally fail to address "what they're asking". Even if the questions are meant to derail him, that doesn't justify omission or disearnestness.
  - yostrovs 8y ago
    He gave straight answers during the hearings, before the rape accusations. The trial, of course, was and should have been different. He was accused and acted like a human.
yostrovs 8y ago
He was not being asked to be a level headed neutral judge. He was accused and made a party to a case. He acted like an innocent accused person on whom vile claims were placed. The accusers acted like witch hunters and did their best to crack open Kavanaugh psychologically. Those people shouldn't be in their positions rather than Kavanaugh shouldn't be where he's going.

by RickS 8y ago

chrisco255 8y ago

We have to presume Kavanaugh's innocence because no witness has come forward to corroborate any claims. In the meantime, the Democrats skewered a man for every inside joke he made in his High school yearbook with his buddies. They were picking apart his actions as a child. They weren't asking questions related to the allegations. They were trying to assassinate his character. That's fucked up I don't care who you are. Who would like to sit on trial for things you said 40 years ago? And have a mass media misinterpret everything out of context? It's fucking primitive. Who wouldn't lose their composure? Only a cool, level headed liar like Bill Clinton could pull that off.

RickS 8y ago
My comment was specific and deliberate in presuming his innocence, which, to reiterate, I do. I was also deliberate in my pointing-out that many of the questions asked of him could be perceived as being in bad faith. Whether that's so is quite subjective. Your "inside joke" is other people's "description of a sex act". For the same reason we can't truly know Kav's innocence or guilt, we can't know whether the jokes are harmful or not. I want to point out a distinction that I made, that I'm not sure you're making: I don't discredit Kavanaugh because he "lost his cool". I too would most certainly be crying in that situation, without a doubt. But when Leahy pressed him, repeatedly over a span of excruciatingly long minutes, to explicitly request and comply with an investigation, and Kavanaugh dodged and bent over backwards to avoid doing such a thing, I found it difficult to understand how a person interested in the truth could behave in that way. A SCOTUS judge should be wiling to be investigated, and expected to survive such a thing.
- chrisco255 8y ago
  Not if all standards of due process and normal jurisprudence were thrown out the fucking window. These allegations were held in the pocket as a political football instead of being handed over to a bipartisan committee and investigated by the FBI from the get go. Feinstein's unethical manipulation of this allegation in the handling of Dr. Ford and outright lies about her alleged fear of flying in order to prevent her being forensically interviewed, like a normal case, are inexcusable. The Democrats had two months to hatch a plan while Kavanaugh's life got turned upside down in less than a week. That's a legal ambush, complete with an angry mob. It's not just at all.
- jcadam 8y ago
  > But when Leahy pressed him, repeatedly over a span of excruciatingly long minutes, to explicitly request and comply with an investigation, and Kavanaugh dodged and bent over backwards to avoid doing such a thing Because it was an obvious trap and he was right to avoid stepping into it.
g8oz 8y ago
>>We have to presume Kavanaugh's innocence because no witness has come forward to corroborate any claims. By the standards of criminal proceedings, yes. But this is a job interview, the standards for disqualifying someone are lower.
- firic 8y ago
  Imagine if every time you wanted to apply for a competitive job you would get rejected simply because some woman claimed that you raped her.
  - eigenstuff 8y ago
    Well, if you don't rape someone, generally that's not something you need to worry about.
    - firic 8y ago
      Did Kavanaugh rape someone? I don't know. Are you 100% sure that he did? If not, lets assume that he didn't. Your statement is now wrong since he is worrying about that.
      - krapp 8y ago
        >If not, lets assume that he didn't. Your statement is now wrong since he is worrying about that. "generally that's not something you need to worry about" is not a statement claiming that it's never something anyone, ever needs to worry about. It is still true that in general if you don't rape someone, you don't need to worry about being accused of having raped someone, because false rape accusations are statistically unlikely.
- jcadam 8y ago
  > But this is a job interview This makes me angry every time I read it. A failed job interview usually means you can just go back to whatever it was you were doing before you applied, none the worse for wear. A job interview shouldn't require you to defend yourself against scurrilous personal attacks which result in you becoming an unemployable social pariah if you fail.

SiVal 8y ago

blatantly ignores the obvious intent of questions asked of them The "obvious intent of the questions" is to block his nomination by any means they can come up with, as was made clear months ago by the protest signs printed with a blank where the name would be inserted just as soon as the name of the nominee was announced. Anyone who blatantly ignores the obvious intent of these questions has an agenda other than finding the actual facts.

RickS 8y ago
I'm going to make a distinction here, between "what they're asking" and "why they're asking". Let's say, for the sake of argument, that you're right about "why they're asking:", and he's being asked questions that are intentionally constructed to lead to dark places, trip him up, and paint him in a negative light. Nevertheless, I think any layperson can detect "what they're asking". A person interviewed for SCOTUS, in my view, must still give a straight answer to a question asked in bad faith. Ill intent on the part of (D) committee members does not justify intentionally incomplete answers that intentionally fail to address "what they're asking". Even if the questions are meant to derail him, that doesn't justify omission or disearnestness.
- yostrovs 8y ago
  He gave straight answers during the hearings, before the rape accusations. The trial, of course, was and should have been different. He was accused and acted like a human.

yostrovs 8y ago

He was not being asked to be a level headed neutral judge. He was accused and made a party to a case. He acted like an innocent accused person on whom vile claims were placed. The accusers acted like witch hunters and did their best to crack open Kavanaugh psychologically. Those people shouldn't be in their positions rather than Kavanaugh shouldn't be where he's going.