Posted on 09/25/2018 7:40:30 AM PDT by Alberta's Child
After watching the events of the last 7-10 days unfold I really feel a need to post something to get some things on the table here. Some of the posts I'm seeing here reflect a lot of venting without a lot of thought, and the references to various media reports and TV "talking heads" make it obvious to me that a lot of folks should step back and think about a few things related to this Kavanaugh nomination process.
I'll lay this out as a list of items that are either factual or are probably strongly likely to be true:
1. The Democrats have probably lined up quite a number of so-called "victims" with accusations against Kavanaugh. This was probably done months ago -- and the process may have started YEARS ago when Kavanaugh began his career on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
2. This approach was modeled on the Anita Hill charade from 1991, and even now you can see an almost identical chain of events unfolding.
3. The list of credible accusations probably got very short very quickly. And after a lot of thorough vetting, the Democrats and their special-interest groups probably came up almost completely dry.
4. The Christine "Buzzy" Ford allegation was clearly a last-ditch attempt to delay -- or even derail -- the nomination ... just as the Anita Hill allegation was.
5. The allegation that Buzzy Ford has made dates back so far, and her story has so many holes in it, that it would have been laughed out of the HR office of any company in America.
6. Up until a couple of days ago I believed the Democrats were trying to delay the process and string it out for weeks, months, or indefinitely. Maybe they were at one time, but now I believe they have TWO main objectives: (A) Keep Buzzy Ford (or anyone else) from ever making a formal allegation in anything that constitutes a legitimate legal process (testimony, sworn affidavite, etc.), and (B) Get Kavanaugh confirmed as quickly as possible.
7. Item 6(B) sounds outlandish but it suddenly became important for the Democrats to do this. This is because Buzzy Ford is losing credibility by the hour as a formal witness but will be given tremendous credibility as an "aggrieved victim" in interviews to be carried on 60 Minutes, the Today show, Loser Holt's Dateline NBC, etc.
8. See Item #7. I suspect the interviews with Ford have already been taped. They probably have 4-6 hours of interviews that are ready to be cut up into 10-20 segments on network news shows like the ones I listed above. But these interviews can't be broadcast on TV until AFTER Kavanaugh is confirmed ... because they can't air an interview on TV and then have Ford's story shredded in a Senate committee hearing under cross-examination.
So if you are President Trump, Mitch McConnell and Charles Grassley, what is the best strategy for playing both the formal Senate process and the parallel political process play out?
I believe we are already seeing how this is being deployed. It is a two-pronged approach from two different angles: by attacking the Democrats on procedure and defending Kavanaugh politically.
Look at the Senate for an example of the procedural approach. Everyone seems to think Grassley is botching this thing because they're impatient about the process, but his role is to make sure the process plays out correctly and attack the Democrats and Ford's legal team over their violation of procedural protocols. It's IMPORTANT to remember this, folks: It's not the Senate's job to "defend" Kavanaugh. It's their job to carry out a legitimate confirmation process and publicly maintain a very high level of impartiality.
The procedural side of this actually provides a lot of political cover for the second angle of approach, which is the personal defense of Kavanaugh as a man and as a nominee. This is not the Senate's job, but the job of President Trump. Kavanaugh is simply a tool in his own defense, but he is TRUMP's nominee, not the nominee of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate.
I think the Republicans are actually playing this perfectly. Despite all the ventilating we're tempted to do about Grassley and his committee management process, he's actually doing exactly what he and McConnell need to do to facilitate Kavanaugh's confirmation while shielding themselves from damaging political blowback -- especially from moderate/independent women voters.
With this in mind, I'd say that confirming Kavanaugh quickly might be the WORST thing the Republicans can do right now.
Instead, the best course of action is to lay low, give as much credibility to the "victims" as necessary, and drag the process out until it becomes more and more clear that the whole thing is a charade and NONE of these "victims" are really willing to testify. In the meantime, the only thing the Democrats can do is call to delay the process because they already know their "victims" will be easily shredded if they DO testify. In the meantime, the 5-6 weeks of endless attacks in the media from weeping "victims" who were allegedly denied a chance to tell their story to the Senate Judiciary Committee never happens.
If Kavanaugh is an eminently qualified man and has an outstanding personal reputation that will shine through in any televised process ... and this assorted group of Mos Eisley-like mutants who have been assembled on the Democrat side to attack Kavanaugh are peddling accusations that have no credibility ... then the best course of action for the GOP is to have the accusations debunked in a very public way AS CLOSE TO ELECTION DAY AS POSSIBLE.
This is the only thing mentioned in the original post that the republicans care about. That's their only strategy They don't care about Kavanaugh's destruction or having a 4-4 Supreme Court.
I will admit that the location where we live definitely influences the severity of how we perceive the nastiness of the opposition. So my perception of how the overall outcome of current events may be too pessimistic. I do hope that you are right and that the voters will indicate their dissatisfaction with media and Democrat nasty nonsense.
Fine — then don’t tell me what to do. Fair? LOL.
Then the chips will start falling.
-PJ
We’ll know before tomorrow. See the link in Post #38.
Her lawyers will say it’s preposterous to ask for that many documents on short notice. They will ask for a 30 day delay to produce them.
Good point.
Bromwich knows documents would be requested, but he wasn’t given the specifics until yesterday. That will be his story and he’s sticking to it. 30 day delay, just as anticipated by Grassley’s staff when they put it forward.
This farce is unraveling for the Democrats by the hour.
Your knickers sure are in a twist
Take a breath.
They would pass, and pass, and pass... and then pass some more. Back to front to back to side to back to front...
Finally, I told my buddy, "You know what they're doing? Everybody's afraid to take the shot because nobody wants to be the one who misses."
So all the other teams have scouted mine, and the word got out that they won't shoot. So just rough 'em up and eventually they'll cough up the ball. And usually, the star player goes down with an injury.
And that's what happened, season after season, until they finally fired the head coach.
The problem here is that a strategy to just keep the ball in play opens up the Republicans to getting blind-sided, when they should be taking the shot and getting off the playing field.
-PJ
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