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The problem with Kavanaugh isn't what he did as a drunken teenager. It's what he did as a sober adult - his angry, petulant outbursts at senators. A Supreme Cou

by beat 8y ago

The problem with Kavanaugh isn't what he did as a drunken teenager. It's what he did as a sober adult - his angry, petulant outbursts at senators. A Supreme Court seat isn't just a question of experience or background. It's a question of temperament. Even if he was completely innocent (and being too drunk to remember or too arrogant to think it important isn't the same as innocent), he should have been completely calm and peaceful with the senators. Think of it another way - it's a job interview. If you were crying and screaming about a conspiracy of your interviewers, would you get hired for any other job? The GOP should have pulled him and put forward another candidate, one without that controversy. They've managed to find such candidates before. The resemblance of the Kavanaugh vote to a bunch of men having their way with women and covering their mouths while they screamed was unsettling.

moduspol 8y ago
Again: It is now objective fact that at least four of his accusers were lying, so we're legitimately evaluating how someone should react when being questioned surrounding false sexual assault and rape allegations after being in the media spotlight for weeks. Many of these senators opposed his nomination prior to his name even being selected, yet you're expecting him to sit back non-chalantly as senators try to trick him into acknowledging maybe he was just too drunk to remember the raping. Him getting a little testy after weeks of the most intense character assassination I've ever seen is not unreasonable. > Think of it another way - it's a job interview. If you were crying and screaming about a conspiracy of your interviewers, would you get hired for any other job? This isn't a job interview, and again: at least four objectively false accusers. If there wasn't any planning involved, then at least four people acted independently to make very conveniently timed false accusations. Both conclusions seem implausible to me, yet logically one must be true. > The GOP should have pulled him and put forward another candidate, one without that controversy. It is now political reality that if the stakes are high enough, especially on the Republican side, you can expect false sexual assault allegations. Again: this is factual. It happened here, and it can happen again. Dropping candidates due to "controversy" stemming directly from uncorroborated sexual assault allegations would only give more power to false accusers. Maybe we can come up with a standard of how we expect people to respond when the mainstream media and political left are openly labeling you as a "potential gang rapist" for weeks, but until then, I can only judge him based on how I'd expect a potential SC justice (and human being) to act in such a difficult situation.
- nebulous1 8y ago
  I don't think they should have dropped him for simply being controversial. That said, which four have been shown to be lying? Only Munro-Leighton has admitted lying outright, and Swetnick changed her statement enough that you could say she was lying too. And Munro-Leighton admitted she wasn't actually the original Jane Doe accuser anyway. I do believe something happened with Blasey Ford, although ultimately I don't know if her memory of the events will fully gel with what happened, or with what Kavanagh thought was happening at the time. Yes, I would have expected him to keep his cool even under such intense pressure. I wouldn't expect you or I would be able to do so, but I wouldn't put either of us forward for a lifetime position on the US supreme court either. Ignoring his composure, a bigger issue for me is that he outright lied about his drinking at the time and the meaning of many phrases used in his yearbook. Renate Alumnus just meant they were all good friends? Boof is farting and devils triangle is a drinking game? These are simply lies, and not even good ones. I don't think the existence of lewd comments in his yearbook is disqualifying, but lying about them should be.
  - moduspol 8y ago
    > That said, which four have been shown to be lying? I posted a separate source for each of the four above. The two you're missing are the "rape on a boat" allegation and the woman who initially corroborated Ford's allegation on Facebook before backtracking after questions arose. Keep in mind that at the time, the pressure was on to just drop him as a mere result of a large number of allegations. These allegations weren't intended to stand up to scrutiny--just to mount political pressure to drop him. > I do believe something happened with Blasey Ford, although ultimately I don't know if her memory of the events will fully gel with what happened, or with what Kavanagh thought was happening at the time. Agreed. > Yes, I would have expected him to keep his cool even under such intense pressure. I think he was in a no-win situation. If he had kept his cool, he would have appeared inhumanly cold. It would have been spun as him being uncaring and confident he's getting away with his sexual assaults. That's kind of why I find this so disgusting, though. This is essentially the "new normal" of high-stakes politics. You're going to be put under a microscope as we hang "potential gang rapist" around your neck for weeks, and then win or lose, we'll move onto the next news cycle without even acknowledging how explicit this character assassination was, or the effect on future nominations. And there will still be people who don't see this as reprehensible. > Boof is farting and devils triangle is a drinking game? Devil's triangle did end up being a drinking game, though [1]. It's not even weird or unexpected that high school boys would name a game after an explicit sexual act. That the rest are being grouped in under "presumed lies" isn't fair, either, and the fact that this stuff is even being discussed is more an indictment of this circus of a process than the judge. We can expect future candidates to keep as many secrets as possible, be as vague as possible in answers, and we're all worse off for it. [1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/devils-triangle-drinking-game-explained-by-ex-classmates-of-brett-kavanaugh https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/devils-triangle-drin...

by beat 8y ago

moduspol 8y ago

Again: It is now objective fact that at least four of his accusers were lying, so we're legitimately evaluating how someone should react when being questioned surrounding false sexual assault and rape allegations after being in the media spotlight for weeks. Many of these senators opposed his nomination prior to his name even being selected, yet you're expecting him to sit back non-chalantly as senators try to trick him into acknowledging maybe he was just too drunk to remember the raping. Him getting a little testy after weeks of the most intense character assassination I've ever seen is not unreasonable. > Think of it another way - it's a job interview. If you were crying and screaming about a conspiracy of your interviewers, would you get hired for any other job? This isn't a job interview, and again: at least four objectively false accusers. If there wasn't any planning involved, then at least four people acted independently to make very conveniently timed false accusations. Both conclusions seem implausible to me, yet logically one must be true. > The GOP should have pulled him and put forward another candidate, one without that controversy. It is now political reality that if the stakes are high enough, especially on the Republican side, you can expect false sexual assault allegations. Again: this is factual. It happened here, and it can happen again. Dropping candidates due to "controversy" stemming directly from uncorroborated sexual assault allegations would only give more power to false accusers. Maybe we can come up with a standard of how we expect people to respond when the mainstream media and political left are openly labeling you as a "potential gang rapist" for weeks, but until then, I can only judge him based on how I'd expect a potential SC justice (and human being) to act in such a difficult situation.

nebulous1 8y ago
I don't think they should have dropped him for simply being controversial. That said, which four have been shown to be lying? Only Munro-Leighton has admitted lying outright, and Swetnick changed her statement enough that you could say she was lying too. And Munro-Leighton admitted she wasn't actually the original Jane Doe accuser anyway. I do believe something happened with Blasey Ford, although ultimately I don't know if her memory of the events will fully gel with what happened, or with what Kavanagh thought was happening at the time. Yes, I would have expected him to keep his cool even under such intense pressure. I wouldn't expect you or I would be able to do so, but I wouldn't put either of us forward for a lifetime position on the US supreme court either. Ignoring his composure, a bigger issue for me is that he outright lied about his drinking at the time and the meaning of many phrases used in his yearbook. Renate Alumnus just meant they were all good friends? Boof is farting and devils triangle is a drinking game? These are simply lies, and not even good ones. I don't think the existence of lewd comments in his yearbook is disqualifying, but lying about them should be.
- moduspol 8y ago
  > That said, which four have been shown to be lying? I posted a separate source for each of the four above. The two you're missing are the "rape on a boat" allegation and the woman who initially corroborated Ford's allegation on Facebook before backtracking after questions arose. Keep in mind that at the time, the pressure was on to just drop him as a mere result of a large number of allegations. These allegations weren't intended to stand up to scrutiny--just to mount political pressure to drop him. > I do believe something happened with Blasey Ford, although ultimately I don't know if her memory of the events will fully gel with what happened, or with what Kavanagh thought was happening at the time. Agreed. > Yes, I would have expected him to keep his cool even under such intense pressure. I think he was in a no-win situation. If he had kept his cool, he would have appeared inhumanly cold. It would have been spun as him being uncaring and confident he's getting away with his sexual assaults. That's kind of why I find this so disgusting, though. This is essentially the "new normal" of high-stakes politics. You're going to be put under a microscope as we hang "potential gang rapist" around your neck for weeks, and then win or lose, we'll move onto the next news cycle without even acknowledging how explicit this character assassination was, or the effect on future nominations. And there will still be people who don't see this as reprehensible. > Boof is farting and devils triangle is a drinking game? Devil's triangle did end up being a drinking game, though [1]. It's not even weird or unexpected that high school boys would name a game after an explicit sexual act. That the rest are being grouped in under "presumed lies" isn't fair, either, and the fact that this stuff is even being discussed is more an indictment of this circus of a process than the judge. We can expect future candidates to keep as many secrets as possible, be as vague as possible in answers, and we're all worse off for it. [1] https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/devils-triangle-drinking-game-explained-by-ex-classmates-of-brett-kavanaugh https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/devils-triangle-drin...