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Home » Logic vs. emotion: Rachel Mitchell’s report on Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony

Logic vs. emotion: Rachel Mitchell’s report on Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony

The New Neo Posted on by

Rachel Mitchell has issued a report that criticizes Ford’s testimony, but what does Mitchell know? She’s only an expert. And she deals with facts and logic, and we don’t want no steeenking facts here.

Here’s the complete report and a discussion of it. But how many people will pay attention, compared to the number watching the hearing, or watching sound bites from it, or joining the feeding frenzy on Twitter? The people who automatically believed Ford because of her vulnerable affect are functioning through emotion rather than logic, and “you cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into.”

We don’t know if Ford is telling the truth in identifying her perpetrator, or indeed whether she was attacked at all, or whether even she thinks she’s telling the truth. We do know that her story has changed over and over in important and material facts, contains perplexing holes, was a long time coming, and could easily be politically motivted. The fact that she can tell a convincing story, and look traumatized while doing it, does not tell us whether that story is the truth. Rachel Mitchell makes it clear that the story could not hold up in a court of law even in a civil suit, and does not even hold up as a credible story.

Those who believe Ford’s story is true have ignored or rationalized the obvious inconsistencies, explaining them away by saying that of course trauma clouds memory. But sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t, and at any rate that cannot do away with the need for evidence. When the supposed “survivor’s” narrative is the only evidence there is, if she cannot tell the story’s relevant facts the case is suspect on its face and can never be used as evidence of an offense. Her friends and family are welcome to believe her, but no one else should rely on her story as the truth.

Those who believe Ford’s story also are ignoring or rationalizing the actual lies she has told (and/or let slide when her attorneys told the lies about her), such as the one concerning her fear of flying (there are apparently others, such as her explanation for the second door on her house). And that lie about flying was not an inconsequential, trangential, “white” lie, either. Although that lie was not about the sexual assault allegations themselves, it was a nakedly manipulative lie told in order to affect the committee’s schedule and alter congressional politics, as well as public opinion (“oh, the poor woman, traumatized by Brett Kavanaugh!”). It was a successful lie, too, at least at the time, even though it could be easily refuted by evidence. But the evidence came too late to undo the damage the lie had already done, and that almost certainly was part of the calculation of the telling of the lie.

Ford’s defenders say something like this in order to explain it all away: “Just because she flies a lot doesn’t mean she’s not afraid of flying!” That is certainly true, but completely and utterly irrelevant. Ford’s lawyers were not citing her fear of flying to discuss her mental state in the abstract, they were citing it to justify a delay in the hearing because she could not fly as a result of that fear of flying. That argument is torn to shreds by the simple fact that she flies often despite whatever fear she has, and therefore of course could have flown to any hearing in a timely fashion. And she did fly to the hearing, after having it postponed for this contrived reason.

That is simple logic, but simple logic is not something Ford’s defenders seem to want to apply or even be able to apply. And no, they’re not all women. Plenty of them are men.

And they’re not all stupid or globally illogical, although some are. For many it’s a case of 2 + 2= 5, because the Party wills it.

Comments

Logic vs. emotion: Rachel Mitchell’s report on Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony — 50 Comments

  1. Can someone teach me how to write concise and clean English deprive of runons? Neo could convey ideas in one clean sentence what I needed 10 paragraphs to convey.

  2. Please, please don’t take away the door business, Neo! I loved the door business. Husband enters one, wifey scoots out other. I can see them doing this all night. Don’t wreck it.

  4. I just read that Dr. Ford’s explanation for the need of a second door in their home might not be the real reason for the door, nor when the door was installed. Now, this is Internet story, so may or may not be true. Maybe like the fear of flying.

  5. https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/10/02/building_documents_undermine_fords_exit_door_account.html

    Here’s the story on the second entry door, part of an addition that included a room and bathroom that was used by a therapist that originally sold the home to the Fords, according to the story.

    Since building permits are public records, easily accessed by anyone, if this story is false, it will soon be debunked. It’s easily verified if true. All you need is the address of the home.

  6. Postponing a flight is consistent with having a fear of flying. It’s also consistent with wanting to delay a hearing.

    Both conclusions are logical, though neither are necessarily true.

  7. If ford was a real sexual assault survivor and what she transcribed was a real event she experienced, then the most logical explanation for her inability to recall who drove her to the party is that it was an attempt to cover up that she drove there herself, which would exonerate Kavanaugh by placing the time of the attack somewhere after her 16th birthday, a time most likely Kavanaugh had already left for college. GOP has not denied that Ford is a survivor, the problem is that being the leftist advocate that she is now there is a high possibility that she utilized her traumatic experience to falsely accuse a political figure who she saw as a threat to her ideology right now by implicating Kavanaugh into an attack with a different culprit. How could she justify framing an innocent men? Kavanaugh is part of the patriarch that victimizes women and he is just as responsible in victimizing women as the man who attacked her. In fact bringing down Kavanaugh has a much greater return for her cause than bringing down her real attacker as that would deal a much more devastating damage to the women victimizing patriarch than merely bringing down her real attacker who probably was a nobody.

  8. Manju,

    I’ve postponed a flight. oooh. Yes, I was impacted by Ted Kennedy that slobbering drunk was all over me. And next to Ted was a guy named Manju. ok. just playin’ But it is logical.

    Anyways, she wasn’t credible or believable and her story has changed on the details a few times. Which is fine. The question is did Brett do what she said and I don’t for a second believe it. And I would be righteously indignant also if I were being questioned about these things as I too was a virgin until later. It’s ridiculous but I’m sure we can find a way to completely destroy people’s lives instead of just having an up or down vote.

  9. “you cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into.”

    Absent reason, what is left? The lying indoctrination in the schools, the dissolution of cultural consensus and massive immigration from societies indifferent at best and antithetical at worst to America’s founding principles… will ensure that the ‘disagreement’ must continue.

    Given that the Left’s goal requires the elimination of liberty and “inalienable” rights and, that they are willing to use whatever means are necessary to achieve that goal… ultimately, how is “politics by ‘other’ means” to be avoided?

  10. I read somewhere that Ford was in the Washington D.C. area consulting with her lawyers when they said she couldn’t fly across the country to testify. And it’s very hard to believe that she didn’t know about the committee’s offer to let her testify in California…it was all over the media.

  13. Manju on October 2, 2018 at 3:37 pm at 3:37 pm said:
    Postponing a flight is consistent with having a fear of flying. It’s also consistent with wanting to delay a hearing.

    Both conclusions are logical, though neither are necessarily true.
    * * *
    If neither one is true, what is your third choice?
    I think both can be true, but one can be primary (delay the hearing), as she could have gotten the “gumption” to board the plane a couple of days sooner than she did.

  14. her claim that she had a fear for flying could be easily disproved by friends who have traveled with her coming forward telling authority that no such fear was ever mentioned or no clear displays of irrational fear were ever observable on a flight where they were traveling together.

  15. I’ve been mulling over the dissonance revealed in the choice of descriptive words that Dr. Ford used in the testimony.

    She is clearly a visually dominant individual (fine, the majority of people are), rather than auditory or tactile (kinesthetic). This is shown by how consistently her eyes were scanning the room, seeking visual input before deciding on what to say. When her male lawyer wanted to communicate with her, he spoke, then touch her lightly to get her attention and then, she turned AND looked as well as listened, not just leaned and listened. Very visual.

    But her descriptive word choices seemed inconsistent with the various situations being painted.

    One example is the choice of “ping-ponging”, which is a very visual description of something she couldn’t see. Why not use the term “banged” or “crashed” or even a transitional form of explanation, such as, “I heard them…like they were ping-ponging”. Even visual individuals will use auditory adjectives when describing what they only heard.

    It’s a great visual imagery, but inconsistent with the “hiding and listening” which was being portrayed.

    Another is the choice to express (or perhaps fake) strong emotion regarding the “laughter”, but when given an opening to present a strong emotion in a visual image (her strong suit), she dodged it and retreated into “physiology-speak”. When Senator Feinstein said, “How do you know it was him”, a strongly visual person would likely have responded something like this “I can still close my eyes and see his face over me”, which would have been a powerful visual image. But she didn’t.

    The verbal “painting” done during the testimony has this sense of being jigsaw pieces picked from other “pictures”…like genuine pieces of multiple other’s traumatic stories but not internally consistent to one individual.

  16. and “you cannot reason people out of something they were not reasoned into.”

    This is SO SO true — that’s why we need more humor.

    Maybe Ford was a bit drunk herself, and was actually being tickled on the bed by the two guys — who were also laughing? And maybe one guy said “meet me outside, where we can be alone, and I can finish …”? But then she left, and he didn’t, so he she went home in a rejected daze, and her life as Professor has never been all she dreamed of …

    I’m just joking! We do need more scrappleface and other humor, tho.

  18. Dave:

    Actually, a lot of people who fear flying hide that fear while flying. But as I said, the issue is not whether or not she fears flying. It’s whether she flies nevertheless. It has been proven (and she admitted in her testimony) that she flies plenty. So whether she is fearful or not is irrelevant. The point is that she used fear as an excuse for not flying, and that was a lie because she flies quite often and could easily have done so much earlier and not postponed the hearing because of it.

  20. So whether she is fearful or not is irrelevant. The point is that she used fear as an excuse for not flying, and that was a lie because she flies quite often and could easily have done so much earlier and not postponed the hearing because of it. –Neo

    You’re absolutely right. But we are nitwits for even trying to hold Doc Ford and her sponsors to standards of truth, logic, and seriousness. None of it is true or serious. The analyses of what Ford has changed in her account (almost everything, but the details are striking) make it clear that this is purely a faked event and a partisan trap. It’s all just a game and anyone from Susan Collins to Jeff Flake to Charles Grassley to Joe Flacco who attempts to answer or contend is wasting his or her time. Take a vote. Hopefully win. If not, move on. Maybe a failure on this, if the Republicans at least TRY, will help at the polls in November. Who knows, but why play into their time-wasting traps? Sen. Collins, wake the eff up!

  21. According to a story out in the last few hours**,the Senate Judiciary Committee now has a statement from Ford’s long term ex-boyfriend, saying that he witnessed Dr. Ford couching someone on how to take a polygraph test.

    This is highly relevant because Ford was asked a couple of times if she had ever done so and she denied–under oath–having any real knowledge about polygraphs, or giving anybody tips about them.

    Then, of course, there is the newly discovered paper Ford wrote about self-hypnosis for memory retrieval and also to create “artificial situations.” As has been pointed out, if her memories of the supposed sexual attack on her by Kavanaugh have been “recovered” using hypnosis, they would not be admissible in most courts of law, and specifically in the state where she alleged the incident to have occurred.

    In additional news, all sorts of alleged incidents–phony college degrees on her resume, her being fired for sexual harassment, etc.–are starting to be reported about another accuser, Julie Swetnik, who is, apparently, a real piece of work, and less credible by the second.

    ** https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/10/boom-former-long-time-boyfriend-of-christine-ford-drops-a-bomb-proves-ford-lied-under-oath-to-senate-committee/

  24. Her shifty eyes, avoidance of any eye contact and circuitous answers were all tell tale signs that she is a certified sociopath, it’s beyond me how anyone could find her credible, geesh, America is supposed to be the country that gave birth to columbo man

  26. Caveat to the Gateway Pundit post: the letter proves nothing; it calls Ford’s testimony into question. It has to be confirmed and validated just like any other piece of evidence.

    Don’t fall into the trap of being like the Fake News.

  27. The letter pokes holes in several of Ford’s claims, in addition to casting doubt on her own moral fiber (although her adult behavior should not be an issue, and would not be in court, but — hey! — this is just a job interview, and the Senate can consider any gosh darn piece of information it wants to, with or without ice).

    The claims of unfaithfulness and financial fraud could be used to impugn the writer’s motives.

    I really, really hope this guy is on the level.
    Kavanaugh cannot sustain a lying “helper” – real or false-flag.

  28. Townhall continues:
    “Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) demanded that Ford and her attorneys hand over key pieces of evidence, including therapy notes.

    “Your continued withholding of material evidence despite multiple requests is unacceptable as the Senate exercises its constitutional responsibility of advice and consent for a judicial nomination,” Grassley said.

    Grassley believes any inconsistencies in Ford’s story can be addressed if her legal team turns over all video and/or audio recordings/footage of her polygraph.

    Although Ford passed her polygraph examination, there were glaring contradictions between her written polygraph statement and the prepared statement she delivered to the Committee. ”

    No judge would have let her get away with suppressing evidence that might have exculpatory value to the defense.
    That’s why this clown-nose-on / clown-nose-off aka trial-by-media is so infuriating.

  29. Senator Collins’ desire to have the FBI look into the Swetnick claims is looking pretty good now.

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2018/10/02/kavanaugh-gang-rape-accuser-i-actually-dont-know-if-kavanaugh-did-anything-and-i-dont-have-proof-anyway-n2524568?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2018/10/02/kavanaugh-accusers-exboyfriend-julie-swetnik-enjoyed-sex-with-multiple-men-at-once-n2524849?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky1

    Two steps, uh, forward, and one step back?
    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbaumann/2018/10/02/breaking-avenatti-submits-declaration-from-a-witness-that-confirms-number-of-j-n2524888?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky2

  30. https://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2018/10/03/investigate-the-senate-democrat-wrecking-machine-n2524928?utm_campaign=rightrailsticky3

    Michelle Malkin Michelle Malkin |Posted: Oct 03, 2018 12:01 AM

    “How did we get here? The Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination circus didn’t happen by accident. The emergence of incredible — and by “incredible,” I mean the literal Merriam-Webster definition of “too extraordinary and improbable to be believed” — accusers in the 11th hour was no mistake.

    It is my contention that this grand unearth-and-destroy spectacle was planned, coordinated and facilitated by Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats and their staffers.

    After the FBI finishes its Freshmen Booze Investigations, Federal Barfight Interrogations and Fraternity Barfing Incidents probe of every last Yale and Holton Arms acquaintance and publicity hound ever photographed with Judge Brett Kavanaugh, every cog in the Resistance Wrecking Machine must be investigated:”

    [Good list, including some things I didn’t know, such as that my own Senator (not that I voted for him) had a line in the fishing hole.]

    “Accuser Procurement. There’s something fishy about the highly managed appearance of accuser Deborah Ramirez onto the Kavanaugh circus scene. Like Ford, Ramirez was assisted by a home state elected official — Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennett. But he got involved only after unnamed “Judiciary staff” reached out to him for help, according to the political operatives masquerading as journalists at the never-Trump New Yorker magazine.”

  31. I remember reading about this case; do the Senators?
    And if they do, obviously they learned nothing.
    Trust but verify — or the courts will do it for you.

    https://townhall.com/columnists/phelimmcaleer/2018/10/02/flashback-woman-lies-about-being-raped-to-the-senate-judiciary-committee-n2524795

    “During Christine Blasey Ford’s Senate testimony alleging Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her, Democrats and Republicans largely agreed she seemed to believe her own story. Kavanaugh himself suggested Ford had probably been attacked but denied he was the culprit.

    As hard as it is to imagine a woman lying about such a thing, the Senate Judiciary Committee should recall someone lied to them about rape less than 10 years ago. And they completely fell for it.

    In 2009, Jamie Leigh Jones told the Committee that four years earlier, on her second night working in Iraq for Halliburton subsidiary KBR (Kellogg, Brown & Root), her drink was spiked at a party and she was gang-raped by a group of Halliburton-employed American firefighters.
    …
    Jones asked the jury for $145 million in the Halliburton trial. Instead, in a virtually unprecedented decision, the jury found against her and made her pay $145,000 in legal costs to KBR.

    Most people watching Professor Blasey Ford relay her story probably thought that no one would possibly lie in such detail and such depth to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The senators on the committee, if they are being honest, could tell America that it is not that unusual.”

  32. I didn’t know McConnell had a sense of humor.
    Learn something new everyday.

    https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2018/10/02/mcconnell-triples-down-were-voting-this-week-on-judge-kavanaugh-n2524831

    “Next, Democrats said the process should be delayed because too few documents were available from Judge Kavanaugh’s past public service. Well, then they received the most pages of documents ever produced for a Supreme Court nomination. Guess what came next? The goalposts moved down the field and the Democrats called for delay because there were too many documents for them to read,” he continued. “I wish this fight could have remained in the realm of normalcy. But when none of these tactics worked — when Judge Kavanaugh demonstrated his widely-acknowledged brilliance, open-mindedness, and collegiality at his confirmation hearings — some chose a darker road. The politics of personal destruction were willfully unleashed.”

  33. AesopFan is so right about we should be skeptical about a letter that seems too good to true. could be a false flag trap set up by the left, through debunking a lying boyfriend’s revenge letter to strengthen her credibility while discrediting all men as Misogynist liars including Kavanaugh.

    Beside Ford deserves her right to innocence until proven guilty as well

  35. Dave on October 3, 2018 at 1:23 am at 1:23 am said:

    Beside Ford deserves her right to innocence until proven guilty as well
    * * *
    Indeed.
    That’s why criminal complaints should be made to a court, not a Senate committee.

  36. Guy Benson links an Ed Morrissey post about a story I saw elsewhere earlier today, and totally demolishes the New York Times, our favorite Fake News platform.

    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/10/02/nbcs-problematic-take-kavanaughs-problematic-testimony/

    ED MORRISSEY Posted at 12:01 pm on October 2, 2018

    “Did Brett Kavanaugh commit perjury in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday? In its “First Look” feature for this morning, NBC News hinted at that allegation by comparing the testimony with a report yesterday about how Kavanaugh prepared to defend himself against allegations from Yale alum Deborah Ramirez. His answer to Sen. Orrin Hatch “appears to contradict” the timeline of texts given to NBC,
    ….
    Oddly, though, today’s First Read doesn’t mention NBC News’ own update to the story. Charles C.W. Cooke noticed it, though: “The NBC story accusing Kavanaugh of perjury has been updated—without any note, or acknowledgement of that fact—and now includes a reference to the full September 25th testimony that flatly contradicts the claim being made. And yet NBC is still pushing it.”
    …

    So why didn’t NBC News mention this context in its First Read this morning? Suffice it to say that it’s not the first strange editorial decision they’ve made in the Kavanaughcalypse.
    …
    NBC seems invested in a particular narrative here. Advancing it requires not providing the whole truth and its context — which speaks volumes about the narrative, as well as those pushing it.”

  37. It would be sweet if this week of delay for further investigations ended up proving Christine Blasey Ford has been lying throughout.

    Yet even if he wins confirmation, Brett Kavanaugh has lost so, so much that ain’t coming back. This repulsive highjacking of the confirmation process by Democrats who don’t have an ounce of good faith seems to be a textbook case of what the nation’s founders warned about how to lose the republic they created.

    There is no going back to Before on this process now, that I can see. What can Grassley do to repair the confirmation process? The public component is nothing but a device for destruction of any nominee the Democrats don’t like — a long, long list. Unless the public unmistakably repudiates the Democrats for their malfeasance. Calling for investigations into the cynical maneuvering behind CBF’s appearance might help IF those investigations go somewhere and people go to jail. Without consequences, liars and sociopaths can have a field day. And that is to say, the Democratic Party in its current makeup. How well does the American public get this?

  38. Perjury charges would bring some consequences, wouldn’t they? Don’t tell me the Republicans were actually prepared on this. I would not mind seeing Christine Squeaky’s million-dollar reward get burned up trying and failing to defend her from what seems to be an open-and-shut case. Good on the idiots that contributed, too.

  39. Now comes this**. Ford’s life long BFF is a career FBI agent and lawyer, and was the woman that Dr. Ford was couching about how to take a polygraph in the above letter.

    Well, apparently when Dr. Ford wrote her letter to Feinstein she testified she was in Rehoboth, DE. And where does her BFF live? Rehoboth, DE.

    Leading to the suspicion that her life Long BFF FBI agent and lawyer, with 20 plus years of experience and technical skills, was helping her put together her letter, and prepare for her polygraph.

    Do we really think that the FBI is Trump and his Adminstration’s friend?

    P.S.–The linked article also has a picture of a women with Porn Lawyer Aventi that may be Dr. Ford’s BFF.

    ** https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/10/03/christine-blasey-ford-friend-in-delaware-was-career-fbi-agent-and-likely-together-during-accusation-letter-construct/

    Not a big fan of conspiracy theories, but it’s becoming more and more clear that everyone and everything in this set-up are connected.

  41. P.S.–The linked article also has a picture of a women with Porn Lawyer Avennati that may be Dr. Ford’s BFF. –Snow on Pine

    That is an amazing picture.

    The one question that this entanglement makes me think of is, why wouldn’t BFF McLean have tipped off BFF CBF that the FBI was onto part of the story? She must have been interviewed, right?

  42. The other issue is the veracity of the ex-boyfriend’s letter. Can you imagine spending six years of your life with CBF, listening to that voice? Me either.

  43. May I point out the obvious about Ford’s polygraph? In the course of a long and not particularly distinguished legal career of over thirty years of litigation, I became very familiar with the partisan expert. You know: The guy or gal hired by the bottom feeders of the legal profession to advance their client’s case by credentialed lying.
    Dr. Ford could have easily taken a polygraph test administered by any polygraph practitioner in California. There must be hundred of such in California, including the Bay area. But she didn’t. Rather, her handlers arranged for a polygraph administered some 3000 miles away by a particular person.
    This tells me two things, first that this “expert” was selected because there was no possibility whatsoever that he would conclude that her story was deceptive. Second that her handlers knew that at the very least there was a realistic probability that a polygraph administered by a different, independent polygraph practitioner would show deception.
    Bluntly said: The circumstances of this polygraph provide strong evidence that she is lying.

  45. “When the supposed “survivor’s” narrative is the only evidence there is”
    I’m still looking for statistics on the survival rate for rape. Can’t find any.

  47. I now believe Ford has a false memory, which she sincerely believes. Like in Bladerunner:

    Why? Did someone hypnotize her and stick Kavanaugh and Judge into her head? She wasn’t 4 years old in 1982, she was 15. And, again, aside from her own contentions, nothing’s emerged which indicates that she was acquainted with Kavanaugh or Judge. Recall Judge’s published memoirs – a certain amount of private information about him was in circulation due to that, and fodder for any storytelling she does.

  48. I think that we will have to invent some new terms to adequately express just how low-down, vile, immoral, indecent, unjust, disgusting, and un-American–indeed, anti-American–both the behavior and the ideas expressed by the Democrats throughout this whole show trial have been.

  49. I believe Ford’s story was all made up because there are traces of craftsmanship everywhere in her story such as vivid memories on intangible things that couldn’t possibly be proven but fuzzy on things that could be proven/disprove.

    Ford was actually around the time of the alleged attack dating someone in Kavanaugh’s social circle but he was never mentioned at all in her story. Being someone in HS pretty much means being together in most if not all your spare time. Why wasn’t Ford’s boyfriend in the party? If he stood her up she would definitely remember the reason and could be used as corroboration or a device to lock in the possible time of occurrence.

  50. Ford was actually around the time of the alleged attack dating someone in Kavanaugh’s social circle but he was never mentioned at all in her story.

    So she says. The man issued a statement through his lawyer saying “In fact, Mr. Garrett has no knowledge or information relating to her claims. ” I do wish he’d answer 3 or 4 specific questions which might put this to bed.

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