My Take On The Hearing

The republicans made a big mistake!

Well they made a lot of them but during the hearing they made a very big mistake.

I thought prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was great!

And that was the Republicans big mistake.

The Republicans wanted a woman cross-examining to avoid the image of a eleven old men questioning a woman about rape and I think Ms. Mitchell was too effective.

The clam professor.

Ms. Mitchell was cool, calm, and asked her questions to Dr. Ford in a neutral voice which made Dr. Ford’s answers much more credible. Even though Ms. Mitchell questions were mostly events not directly related the attempted sexual assault, I think that questions and answers made Dr. Ford much more sincere and believable.

The little rich white boy.

The angry judge Kavanaugh I thought came across as arrogant, spoiled, evasive, and reeking of white male privilege… How dare you question me!

I don’t think that he answered one question. When asked if he would want the FBI to investigate the allegation he went into a tirade of how there were sworn testimonies from the other already.

His snapping at Sen. Amy Klobuchar was another big mistake.

Old angry men

The Republicans senators should have stuck to their script and let their lawyer mouthpiece speak. They came across bunch of angry old men.

They kept saying that there is no need for the FBI to investigate the allegations because they already have sworn statements and the committee ready has investigate him, it is like they couldn’t see that by saying those things it actually made the case for having an impartial third party to investigate the allegations.

Then when Sen. Lindsey Graham vengeful warning to the Democrats: “If this is the new norm, you better watch out for your nominees” was another big mistake

Takeaway…

I don’t want an angry judge on the Supreme Court; judge Kavanaugh showed he is not Supreme Court material.

Second it showed that this was all a Republican dog and pony show.

All the people want is for them to slow down and investigate the allegations and that is something the Republicans don’t understand.

The British Guardian had this to say…

“She was certainly a compelling person,” Flake told reporters when asked what his “gut instinct” was after hearing from Ford and Kavanaugh. “She gave good testimony.”
[…]
Kavanaugh’s aggressive tone while appearing before the committee was remarkable for a nominee to the reputationally independent and nonpartisan supreme court. Kavanaugh spent much of his statement lambasting Democrats for trying to derail his nomination – echoing the defense put forth by the White House and Republicans in Congress.
[…]
“This is a disaster for the Republicans,” the Fox host Chris Wallace said, while adding of Ford’s testimony: “This was extremely emotional, extremely raw and extremely credible.”

In Forbes this morning there is an article about the hearing this morning and in it they list the traits needed for a Supreme Court justice;

Let's all take a deep breath and step back for a moment. All crazy partisan politics aside, let's consider the qualities a good justice should have.

• A good justice should be objective and fair-minded, not guided by strong preconceived opinions.
• A good justice should be empathetic, not focused on oneself.
• A good justice should be calm, not angry.
• A good justice should show grace under pressure, not be easily rattled.
• A good justice should be even-tempered, not short-tempered.
• A good justice should be thoughtful, not strident.
• A good justice should in the face of adversity show courage, not petulance.

And I think that judge Kavanaugh did not show any of those traits.

Somehow this song comes to mind…

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Update: 3:45PM

I just found this video with a theory of why the Republicans pulled their prosecutor; because she was getting to questions the Republicans didn’t want asked.

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Update Sept. 29 8:00AM

I just came across this opinion in the New York Times

An Injudicious Man, Unfit for the Supreme Court
This was a job interview, not a criminal trial. Kavanaugh, in his fury and pathos, failed the test.
By Roger Cohen
September 28, 2018

What America saw before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an injudicious man, an angry brat veering from fury to sniveling sobs, a judge so bereft of composure and proportion that it was difficult not to squirm. Brett Kavanaugh actually got teary over keeping a calendar because that’s what his dad did. His performance was right out of Norman Rockwell with a touch of “Mad Men.”

This is what you get from the unexamined life, a product of white male privilege so unadulterated that, until a couple of weeks ago, Kavanaugh never had to ask himself what might have lurked, and may still linger, behind the football, the basketball, the lifting weights, the workouts with a great high-school quarterback, the pro-golf tournaments with Dad, the rah-rah Renate-ribbing yearbook, the Yale fraternity, and the professed sexual abstinence until “many years” after high school.

I feel the same way, he is a spoiled little rich brat.