No doubt whomever plays Carroll in an upcoming film directed by some award friendly director will get nominated for an Oscar.

One wonders how someone can suffer reputational damage after they have a court verdict in their favour ? Surely having been vindicated by a court, anything the defendant said after that point could not cause damage to the plaintiff’s reputation.

Any damages after that point are an admission that the court verdict is not credible, as it implies the public believes the defendant rather than the jury.

Unfortunately reality does not work like that. For one, many court cases or legal proceedings are not about the subject in question, they just get colored by it. This is something I pointed out with Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.

Secondly, many court cases are not decided based on definitive proof, but just on what is not likely. For instance, OJ Simpson is a key case of this.

And Thirdly: Myths are persistent. And as Ray Donovan said, “Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”

It’s telling that that was also a case launched in New York State and which saw a followup effort from the Feds.

https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/topic-guide/donovan-raymond-j-investigation

Denial is not a river in Egypt, nor is it suitable for this blog.

You’re ridiculous.

No Bauxite, you are. And you’ve been called out as such by people far more than me, including our host. Who I will not claim endorses all my points, let alone all that have written, but who has noticed you utterly memory holing the very living, firsthand knowledge she has about the effects of these strategies on Kavanaugh.

You also like pretending I am the only person here going after you for your ridiculous, immoral behavior and suicidality spiteful attitude towards these kinds of abuses of power.

I am not. I am just the one that goes into the most detail and length.

You more or less conceded every point I made,

This is what we call delusional AND Dishonest.

I agreed with you that Trump’s history and conduct make these charges stick more.

However, I completely rejected the idea that the appropriate answer to these strategies was focused on ditching the victim in question if they are “dirty” enough. I also put a question mark over your confident claim that had Trump been Kavanaugh he would not be on the court by pointing out how narrow and party line votes are.

I moreover pointed out why breaching the “Right Wing Bubble” is so important rather than always relying on trying to get the “right” candidate.

You have no coherent responses to any of these. I would know, I READY YOUR COMMENTS FAR MORE CAREFULLY THAN YOU WILL EVER READ MINE.

Indeed, I methodically quote you line by line and word by word.

This is you being a sore, gaslighting loser because I pointed out that ditching Trump is not the answer to all our problems. Not being Trump certainly was not to Kavanaugh.

but you call me a liar and abuser

Because you are.

This delusional, dishonest response of yours underlines that. You are like the superficially polite abusive ex of much of the commentariat here whenever the Big Orange Whale comes up (and on a few other subjects).

You forward a range of points that range from the well considered at best (which I note when I think I see them), to the half-baked, to the startlingly naive to the flat out, factually untrue or even malevolent (such as your idiotic, factually dishonest idea that Romney was better at GOTV than Trump, and your gaslighting, insidious claim that differences about that were matters of dispute between “rational minds” rather than a simple matter of interpreting the statistics when you got caught doing so wrong).

And then when you get caught you loudly demand the others answer whether they believe you or their own lying eyes and even argue that disagreement on this issue or their claims are “ridiculous.” (Sometimes before further retreating, motte and bailey style, to the “reasonable minds” borderline post-modernist stance).

Unfortunately for you, it is a relatively easy thing to counter. And the rest of the blogging public here has generally cottoned on to how you are nowhere near as honest or upstanding or reasonable a broker as you claim. And to be sure, of them may be motivated by overweening bias or personal animosity beyond reason, but others simply have to watch as you get pinned in to your various points and have them scrutinized.

This is one of those times.

whatever else because I don’t weigh the issues the same way that you do. That’s nuts.

No, what’s nuts is insisting that you do not have to pay half as much attention to the malignant nature of leftist lawfare and smear attacks because some of your preferred candidates escaped by the skin of their teeth with far weaker cases.

And what’s nuts is you insisting basic principles of constitutional law, that none should be convicted or found against without evidence (which Carroll does not possess) are simply “weighing the issues differently.”

They are not. They are cases of you failing to weigh relevant principles and issues at all. I’ve explained why that is not tenable. I do not need to do so again here.

Anyway, I say that if you have to fight an important battle, fight it on favorable terrain. If you fight on the enemy’s favorable terrain and lose, you still lost and the precedent is set.

And I thought my vote bakery analogy was bad. But at least I can stand by that as being accurate enough. This isn’t.

I hate to tell you this, but you CAN’T always fight important battles on favorable terrain. Maybe the enemy catches you off guard. Or maybe victory requires going deep into the enemy’s stronghold set up on there. Or perhaps you need to safeguard your supply lines from raiders.

In any case, securing favorable terrain and fighting on it when possible is useful, but it’s not going to be enough. So you had BETTER GET USED TO FIGHTING AND WINNING when unfavorable terrain comes up. Whether that’s finding ways to counter the enemy’s strength, deter them from attacking even on unfavorable terrain, or shaping the unfavorable terrain to be favorable to you.

Because the blunt reality is that the enemy gets a vote too, and they can and will choose to attack where they think they can.

ESPECIALLY IF THERE IS LITTLE TO NO CONSEQUENCE FOR THEM DOING SO, AND POSSIBLY SIGNIFICANT GAIN FOR THEM.

You have your head so far up your ass you are obsessed with replacing Trump and have talked at that about length, but have said effectively nothing about countering these strategies in the long run., let alone doing so EFFECTIVELY and VISIBLY for the public.

Which brings me back to the “this isn’t weighing issues differently, this is you not weighing certain issues at all when you find it congenial to your biases and agenda” point I made.

Also, “the precedent is set”? The precedent was set well before Trump on similar attacks. Many of them did not include rape accusations (though some did, like Anita Hill’s failed move) but Andy Weissmann has largely made his career off of this.

Trump is the left’s favorable terrain.

A: This is deflection. The legal principles involved means that we need to shoot down baseless, evidence-less accusations like this even against “unfavorable terrain”. Otherwise you reward them for doing so. This is a point many people, including our host, brought up.

B. Citation Needed.

That certainly was true for most of 2016. But it did not play out well, did it? Indeed, if Trump is their most favorable terrain they have a much worse track record on it than on McCain Terrain or Romney terrain, even in 2020.

They certainly love to hate him and there are features about Trump that are eminently hateable even to those on the right, but that doesn’t mean he is their most favored terrain in comparison to people who were content to hug the dream of collegiality and go down in silence or to less an effect. You don’t like that I pointed out W. Bush’s failure to control his enemies within his administration led to a massive blackwashing of him on the Iraq War and some other matters (featuring things like selectively editing accounting of Saddam’s ties to AQ and the Taliban to be less damning). But it holds.

And while Sanders shares much about Trump (multiple mansions for starters, outsider populist appeal) he did himself no favors by ruling Hillary’s server out of bounds.

(Frankly, J6 defendants are as well.)

The left itself clearly disagrees on at least many of those January 6th Defendants. Tucker and the Congressional Republicans have misfired plenty of times but actual footage of the January 6th Defendants was sufficient to get a bunch of their sentences squashed or charges dropped as it became clear the DC Machine had violated the Brady Rule writ large and smeared many of them.

Which brings me back to the point. Writing these people off is not merely immoral and unethical, it’s pragmatically dumb. It is quite literally letting the enemy dictate the terms of the engagement by prematurely ruling out several avenues of attack and not even contesting some – no matter how important – on the grounds they are “unpopular.”

Well, why are they unpopular (assuming they are)?

Because the left has been allowed to get away with character assassination writ large using its control of the narrative, often on a grandiose scale, even though in many cases there is scant evidence or even none.

There is a difference between advocating a limited tactically withdrawal when the situation truly warrants it or arguing against certain strategies, and simply giving the enemy more power by letting wrongly accused people hang out.*

Trump and his schtick are so odious to Democrats, independents, soft Republicans (and a lot of actually conservative Republicans) that it is easy for them to believe that he’s guilty of the things he’s been accused of.

“Democrats, independents, soft republicans, and a lot of actually conservative Republicans” are not hive minds, and they clearly do not find him so uniformly odious as you paint him to given the number of blue collar democrats (who you tried to claim were naturally part of the Republican base because of Reagan in spite of how they spent almost none of the elections since Reagan voting R) and independents, such as Blacks and Hispanics.

Moreover, if it is easy for them to believe that X is guilty of the things he is accused of, then the key strategy is to Highlight The Weaknesses In The Enemy’s “Evidence.” This is one reason why the Congressional avenue played so well to Kavanaugh’s defense, including the privleged speech and the way it caught CBF melting down on stage.

(And even THAT, as Neo pointed out, wasn’t enough to convince some Dems that he was still guilty.)

On issues like this, spend less time obsessing about how to spin it to take down Trump and more time about how you will disarm attacks like this against innocent or at least unprovable targets in general.

EVEN IF You personally dislike them.

EVEN IF they are “Soft Targets” or “Unfavorable Terrain.”

So in addition to fighting the perception of legitimacy that the public gives to judicial proceedings and officers of the court, you have to fight the public perception that defenses of Trump are just hyper-technical objections.

Firstly: Hyper technical objections exist for a reason, and should be given due respect.

Secondly: There’s not much more damning about the basics of this case than the fact that Carroll has literally no evidence, and Trump was never found guilty.

Making the public outside of the right wing bubble understand how abusive these prosecutions are, in this circumstance, with this defendant, is hugely dfficult and, I think, impossible.

We’ve already established you’re not thinking, you’re rationalizing. Neo’s points in particular and how you (don’t) engage with them are telling on this point.

And none of that negates the need to fight battles like these (and indeed even if Trump dipped out tomorrow we would STILL Have to fight this particular battle BECAUSE of the important principles involved and because it is a case where leftist abuse was so relatively obvious).

We need to start extracting a price from the Left for doing these kinds of antics and making it visible. That will be hard, it will in many cases be an uphill battle even on “favorable terrain” and with people much more inoffensive than Trump. But it will be worth it by helping to put a stop to this kind of madness.

And it CAN work. There’s a reason why #MeToo has largely waned and broken down, especially in the wake of things like Amber Heard. Even Sidney Powell (as much as you may dislike her and as flawed as she showed herself to be) was able to hammer Weissman and co on some matters like their abuses regarding Enron.

So the appeal for Tunnel Vision on finding the “Right” Candidate is neither practical nor popular.

I don’t think that means that you abandon Trump or the J6 defendants to their fate.

You see, this would be more convincing…. if you had written it before people like me had to hold your feet to the absolute fire to get you to say more about these cases than “Proposterous But…” and “Unpopular”, and after Neo of all people pointed out multiple times how the “Clean Conservatives” are also eligible for these attacks.

Still, your credibility and track record are so low even lip service on this matter is better.

Just acknowledge how much more difficult they making it to fight back

Which most of us have, we just believe that the importance of the fight as well as the rather thin nature of the cases warrants it.

and don’t make them front and center in the 2024 campaign.

Which is a place where reasoned minds can actually disagree, and a path I would have been more open to before DeSantis dipped out. But there is sound reason for highlighting them. They represent some of the most grotesque abuses of power in recent American history, for nakedly political gain. And we have seen how the Left was forced to pull back at times under pressure on this.

* And for the sake of the argument, I am including actual criminals in January 6th on this. I don’t condone anyone who trespassed, or stole furniture or computers, or violated Capital preservation edicts on how you preserve the structure and surrounding area, or even bruised a capital hill cop or two.

But the conditions of their holding are blatantly not equal to their actual crimes. These were not terrorists**, they were not trying to “tyrannically” overthrow “Our Democracy” or what have you. To treat them as such is a sin and a crime.

** And how do I know they are not terrorists? if any of them ACTUALLY WERE terrorists they’d be paraded front and center by the left and its narrative control infrastructure along with the relevant proof. They wouldn’t be desperately grabbing people after the fact for the crime of “Lawfully carried a gun distantly outside capitol hill.”

Any damages after that point are an admission that the court verdict is not credible, as it implies the public believes the defendant rather than the jury.

I’m not into invective. But I note that you have had nothing to say to my points about Kavanaugh.

The charges stuck.

I agree that Trump makes it a bit easier for charges to “stick.” But they stick anyway, even to squeaky-clean Kavanaugh and “binders of women” squeaky-clean Mormon Romney the Trump-hating RINO.

Anyway, I say that if you have to fight an important battle, fight it on favorable terrain. If you fight on the enemy’s favorable terrain and lose, you still lost and the precedent is set.

Trump is the left’s favorable terrain. (Frankly, J6 defendants are as well.) Trump and his schtick are so odious to Democrats, independents, soft Republicans (and a lot of actually conservative Republicans) that it is easy for them to believe that he’s guilty of the things he’s been accused of. So in addition to fighting the perception of legitimacy that the public gives to judicial proceedings and officers of the court, you have to fight the public perception that defenses of Trump are just hyper-technical objections. Making the public outside of the right wing bubble understand how abusive these prosecutions are, in this circumstance, with this defendant, is hugely dfficult and, I think, impossible.

I don’t think that means that you abandon Trump or the J6 defendants to their fate. Just acknowledge how much more difficult they making it to fight back and don’t make them front and center in the 2024 campaign.

I’m not the one studiously avoiding the point.

Yes, you are. Neo had to point it out to you. Twice.

– If Kavanaugh behaved like Trump, he wouldn’t be on the Supreme Court.

Possibly, maybe even probably, though I doubt it. But the point is that it was not for lack of trying from the left, and even now the stink of the accusations remains on him.

The point being that – as Art Deco and others pointed out – they will dig around to try and fit it on just about any Republican. Amy Comey Barrett largely escaped that in favor of other attack lines because she is a married woman and they could not find anything of that vein (or credibly or even Uncredibly invent anything).

It is foolish to assume that will always remain so.

– Trump’s crude, undisiplined behavior make him both a soft target and a difficult-to-defend victim of the left’s dirty tricks and lawfare.

This is true, and also underlines the importance of defending more vigorously against such dirty tricks and lawfare. Especially when they are so dirty and disgusting as this.

Moreover, I note that even if you got your dream and Trump dropped out to private life we would STILL have to continue attacking this verdict and its purveyors and the method used precisely because of the chilling, damaging effect it has on all of this. But would you? Somehow I doubt it.

Moreover I note that Trump is a big target but he is not quite as soft as appeared, in part because he does not let this kind of stuff slip by unchallenged. That causes plenty of problems (as you and I have pointed out) but also makes it much harder for this to go quite as readily. Genteel politics is admirable and even desirable, but it has its downsides. Especially when dealing with gutter thugs. This was a weakness of Dubya Bush and Romney (and ironically McCain was hesitant going after the “other” side during his run).

We can and should do better than Trump in terms of Reagan’s jujitsu like ability to retaliate and clamp down on leftist narratives while remaining fine for prime time. But we can do a lot worse than Trump and many in the Left sure seem to know it.

None of this removes the fact that if your address to this news is to spend more time focusing more on Trump’s foibles than on this violation of the spirit and likely the letter of the law, you are part of the problem. Which also makes your posturing and attempts to preen about being better than the Right Wing Bubble all the more richly ironic.

It begs the question “well, what are you doing about that?” And sorry, but while “Advocating we ditch Trump” is an effort (and even a defensible one), it is far from all that is necessary. Even if we agreed ditching Trump for someone else on the current slate of candidates was best, it would not outweigh the need to keep pressure on nonsense like this.

Because I reiterate: They almost got Kavanaugh, and in some ways they still inflicted a lasting wound on his reputation. Weissman has made his career off of getting people whether they did something or not, and not just in terms of hanky panky or rape.

This goes far beyond Trump and choosing this subject to obsess with harpooning the Orange Whale on is distasteful and naive at best, suicidal at worst.

That’s my point.

Whatever merit your point has is outweighed by bigger ones. Starting with the fact that assuming this is about Trump just because he is the target is stupidly naive and short-sighted. Especially given the precedents it set.

Moving on to how Trump was an especially appetizing target but was not the only one.

I find it difficult to believe that reasonable minds can disagree with that.

We don’t disagree with that. But I and everybody else pointed out that your obsession with that point to the detriment of other, Vastly more important ones indicates an utterly unreasonable mind.

Literally everyone else in this thread that bothered to comment on your petty little post noted that and took issue with it. It is classic “Skirts too Short” nonsense that bodes badly not just for Trump but for all of us.

Unlike you, however, I’m not going to acuse of anyone of being a liar.

Not directly at least, you will instead abuse them by other means. Being caught in a Right Wing Bubble unlike you (though you conveniently omit how such a bubble develops or what you are doing to puncture it). Trying to thread explanations about how we shouldn’t make so much of this strategy applied to others but Trump by parsing arguments about what determined the Kavanaugh vote to say “See! Kavanaugh got in!”

(Barely, like ACB after him, and under a cloud of noxious turmoil.)

I call you intellectually dishonest because you are, and I can muster a formidable amount of evidence to that effect. I also have very solid circumstantial evidence (and some would go further) that you are a knowing liar to boot. You are welcome to try and prove me wrong, but your effects thus far have been underwhelming to say the least.

om likes calling you “Concerned Conservative (TM)” though frankly I think he should get a new moniker, not so much because the repetition is old and gets more irritating but because I’d much prefer if you showed much concern beyond the Great Orange Whale. Even if you cared not a single whit for Trump, or the Jan 6th prisoners (political or otherwise), or the legal concepts and moral principles involved it would at least behoove you to pretend on occasion to rebuild what remains of your credibility on this issue.

Is CC™ a complete moron?

Does OMB syndrome destroy all higher levels of cognition? Seems so.

Kavanaugh did not have the excesses of Trump’s personality but it did not matter to the left, CC™. Did you miss that? When Kavanaugh showed emotion and outrage about the assassination of his character the left pivoted and attacked him as showing an absence of “judicial temperament.” Did you miss or forget that CC™. Are you a moron or malicious CC™?

– If Kavanaugh behaved like Trump, he wouldn’t be on the Supreme Court.

– Trump’s crude, undisiplined behavior make him both a soft target and a difficult-to-defend victim of the left’s dirty tricks and lawfare.

That’s my point. I find it difficult to believe that reasonable minds can disagree with that. Unlike you, however, I’m not going to acuse of anyone of being a liar.