We are Listening to the hearing.
Dr. Ford is a teacher. As Senator Blumenthal pointed out, she has courageously given our republic a teaching moment regarding civic duty.
And as teachers seem required to tolerate fools in classrooms (as I myself was a fool in high school classes), there are fools throwing tweeted spitballs and other fools on the scene mocking the teacher.
Kavanaugh to Senate Democrats: “My family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed… This confirmation process has become a national disgrace … you have replaced advice and consent with search and destroy.”
Ford describing what she remembers from the alleged attack: “Indelible, in the hippocampus is the laughter. The uproarious laughter between the two [Kavanaugh and Judge] … and they’re having fun at my expense.”
This from AXIOS:
“Imagine if Brett Kavanaugh had offered his emotional, tearful, you-ruined-my-life opening speech to the Judiciary Committee — and then called for a quick FBI probe to clear his name and perhaps find the true assailant.
Imagine if it were he who volunteered to endure another week of scrutiny and attacks for the good of the court, the country, Dr. Ford. He would have looked confident, humble, even a tad heroic, given the president who nominated him opposed the FBI probe. Well, he and Republicans had an epic failure of imagination, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei writes:
“Instead, they were forced reluctantly and publicly into what should have been a fairly easy-to-anticipate moderate compromise: agree to a vote after a quick FBI probe.
Why it matters: Instead of looking hungry for truth, Kavanaugh heads into the week looking fearful of findings.There’s a reason for this miscalculation:
Republicans, from the earliest days of the allegations, were overly confident they could just jam this through, several people involved the process tell us. They thought he would be better defending himself — and that Dr. Ford would seem less credible.
Republicans treated this like a bare-knuckles political fight. They calculated a Fox News appearance, a Trump endorsement, a headstrong Mitch McConnell, a fired-up base, a fast vote would hold the party together. In the GOP’s defense, the strategy might have worked had Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) not changed his mind at the very last minute. “
You have to be grateful that the eleven cowardly men could not stand by and let their token woman interrogator lose the game. Why?
Nothing was more obvious than when the cowards saw capable questioners pushing the nominee into cracking and revealing his lack of judicial demeanor.
So they came out of their closets naked and contemptible. Non-intellectual Republicans have proven they cannot run the country wisely nor honorably. They have nothing of social redeeming value to offer.
With politicians like these we will wind up with a Good-Ole-Boys Supreme Court.
Curmudgeon at Work 