Ramirez, Mayer, and the Yale alum network
In one of yesterday’s posts I pointed out that Ronan Farrow has made the following statement about Kavanaugh accuser Deborah Ramirez:
She came forward because Senate Democrats came looking for this claim. She did not flag this. This came to the attention of people on the Hill independently, and it has cornered her into an awkward position.
In response, commenter Yancey Ward asked a good question:
How exactly did the Democrats “find” Ramirez? Didn’t Ramirez have to float this story somewhere in the last 3 months to catch the attention of the Democrats?
There’s actually quite a bit of information out there about that. For example, one of the authors of the New Yorker article that broke the story, Jane Mayer, gave an interview in which she said the following:
We found classmates had been talking about this for weeks and months since July. There’d been an email chain of Yale classmates of Kavanaugh talking about will this thing come out long before Christine Blasey Ford came forward.
So we know that Yale alums, probably from the classes who attended Yale around the time Kavanaugh attended, have had an email thread going since July. Kavanaugh was nominated by President Trump on July 9th, so it’s pretty clear by the timing that this discussion in the email thread began around the time of his nomination and in reaction to it (or in strong anticipation of it).
We don’t know their identities, or how many people were involved, or what relation Ramirez had to the email chain (was she part of it? and if so, was that from the start?). We don’t know how much exposure she had to the rumors in the email chain. For that matter, we have no idea how or when the rumors started in the first place. Was it back when the incident is alleged to have occurred? Was it more recently?
And why would we give much credence to a rumor, particularly one about which we know virtually nothing in terms of its development, except that we know that the main character—Ramirez—doubts her own memory of it, and admits to having been completely inebriated at the time the alleged incident occurred?
We don’t know if the email thread’s original participants were limited to members of Kavanaugh’s Yale class (’87) only, or if they included (or grew to include) people from other classes who were in attendance during all of the years Kavanaugh was there, or if additional Yale alums from still other years had or gained access to the thread. And certainly, the information exchanged on the thread would not necessarily be limited to Yale alums at all—people with access could inform spouses, friends, members of Congress, and the press, at any point in the process. Obviously, Mayer learned about it very early on.
So, how did Senate Democrats get involved, as Mayer’s co-author Ronan Farrow has claimed? Farrow didn’t name the Senate Democrats or describe the process, or explain how those Democrats got the news from the Yale alums, or whether it was the Democrats first and the alums later. But there are many Democrat senators who went to Yale and might have had access, either directly or indirectly, to the emails, although I could find no Democratic senator Yale alums who were in Kavanaugh’s class (you can search here, as I did). The closest I came to finding a classmate was Democrat Amy Klobuchar, senator from Minnesota and Yale Class of 1982, which means she left Yale a year before Kavanaugh entered and would therefore not have been there at the same time.
I think it’s also interesting that Mayer herself is a Yale graduate, Class of ’77, which may have helped her get access to the thread because of Yale alum connections in general, although she certainly was at the school way before Kavanaugh ever got there. And just to round things off, it turns out that Ronan Farrow received a JD from Yale in 2009, although that almost certainly didn’t help him in terms of connections to anyone in Kavanaugh’s class at the college.
More about the Yale emails here:
Robert VerBruggen raises a very obvious possibility: “These emails would appear to be important evidence regarding how this ball got rolling. They also may bear on the question of whether Ramirez’s memory closely matches the anonymous source’s simply because they’re both the account that was circulating while Ramirez was putting her memories together and contacting her former classmates. Let’s see them.” Yeah, let’s. Let’s see if it was Ramirez or someone else who first identified Kavanaugh as the person who assaulted her. Let’s see just how many gaps in Ramirez’s memory required filling in by others, seemingly not one of whom actually witnessed the incident. Let’s find out how many second-hand or even third-hand “witnesses” were needed to help the victim herself “remember.”…
This sure sounds like a case of someone’s hazy memory being reshaped after the fact through the power of suggestion.
People are free to email any person or any group of people they wish. But this sort of gossip chain—in which people discuss rumors (no witness to the purported event has ever been located, except for Ramirez) and have plenty of time to develop the story and make the descriptions match—can easily influence a person’s memory and/or description of events, sometimes without the person even realizing how much. The resulting story told is either a conscious lie (that would be a case of #7 on my list from yesterday), or an unconscious distortion in which the person relating the event thinks it is a real memory they’re accessing (numbers 5 or 6 on that same list), but it is not.
Either way, in a court of law this sort of chain of events would make the story and in particular its details highly suspect. But Mayer and company know that they don’t have to deal with a court of law when accusing Kavanaugh. They can just put the story out there and hope that it has its desired effect in the court of public opinion. They can rely on their previous reputations—in the Weinstein revelations, for example—and hope that will give them extra clout in taking down Kavanaugh.
I see parallels with the McMartin preschool sexual abuse hysteria from the 1980’s.
There is an interesting example of this on Quillette today
The person is not someone I would care to know but the account sounds similar.
In early October, 2017, following the emergence of the Harvey Weinstein allegations, a writer and activist living in Brooklyn named Moira Donegan created a Google Doc entitled “Shitty Media Men.” She sent it to female friends working in media and encouraged them to add to it and forward it on. The idea was to spread the word about predatory men in the business so that women would be forewarned. Anyone with access to the link could edit and add to the list. At the top of the spreadsheet were the following instructions: “Log out of gmail in order to edit anonymously, never name an accuser, never share the document with any men.” In the first column was this disclaimer: “This document is only a collection of misconduct allegations and rumors. Take everything with a grain of salt.” Nobody did.
The list had only been live for 12 hours when word reached Donegan that Buzzfeed were preparing to publish a story about it. She immediately closed it down. By that time, there were already 74 entries.
One little bit of information I would be interested in finding out is who is funding this campaign, insofar as it is being funded at all. I know it doesn’t take funding to start an email chain, but activists were possibly transported to and supported during the hearings, and I suspect (without evidence) that some of them received financial support.
NARAL and Planned Parenthood are frequently mentioned as supporting demonstrations against Kavanaugh, such as the one that took place several days ago here in Carson City, NV.
Which brings me to a pet peeve: that PP can use a portion of the nearly half-billion dollars it receives from the USG to influence US policy. Somehow that strikes me as a misappropriation of taxpayer money, and I would like someone in Congress to propose legislation saying that any organization receiving USG financial support over a certain threshold cannot give political donations to political parties or politicians. I don’t suppose the legislation would pass, but what we have right now is an insidious situation that needs to be addressed and fought against.
One little bit of information I would be interested in finding out is who is funding this campaign, insofar as it is being funded at all.
The smart money says cut-outs for George Soros or Tom Steyer. Recall that sorosphere outfits finance a sleazebag like David Brock. They’re not picky about hygiene.
I appreciate Neo’s homework, but the bottom line remains this affair is a shitty Democratic attempt. The huge danger is that the presumption of innocence is being undone. Female gossip and hysteria (this latter is derived etymologically from “wandering uterus”) are becoming the new normal.
God help us.
This is all from a writing class or something
https://twitter.com/MichaelAvenatti/status/1044960428730843136
There is a lack of specificity except for the use of Kavanaugh’s name.
This is sad. “numerous” people. Where is the date, time, place and people?
Most of the problems are well-known here, but this one was new to me, as is the “ninth” problem I have added below (the headline is (intentionally?) misleading).
https://nypost.com/2018/09/25/eight-big-problems-for-christine-blasey-fords-story/
“4) Her own immediate family doesn’t appear to be backing her up, either. Her mother, father and two siblings are all conspicuously absent from a letter of support released by a dozen relatives, mostly on her husband’s side of the family.
The letter attests to her honesty and integrity. “Why didn’t her parents and brothers sign the letter?” a congressional source familiar with the investigation wondered.”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/09/26/brett-kavanaugh-christine-blasey-ford-told-four-people-sexual-assault-claims/1429270002/
“In her declaration, Adela Gildo-Mazzon said Ford told her about the alleged assault during a June 2013 meal at a restaurant in Mountain View, California, and contacted Ford’s attorneys on Sept. 16 to tell them Ford had confided in her five years ago.
…
In another declaration, Keith Koegler said Ford revealed the alleged assault to him in 2016, when the two parents were watching their children play in a public place and discussing the “light” sentencing of Stanford University student Brock Turner.
…
In another declaration, Rebecca White, a neighbor and friend of more than six years, said Ford revealed the alleged assault against her in 2017.
…
In his declaration, Ford’s husband said he learned of his wife’s experience with sexual assault “around the time we got married” but that she didn’t share details until a couple’s therapy session in 2012.”
* * *
The relevance of the dates is left as an exercise for the reader.
We already knew the husband’s story (and that the therapist had NOT been given the name of the alleged attacker, or didn’t write it down), but none of the rest would be admitted in any kind of legitimate proceeding, let alone a trial.
See Andy McCarthy’s article today.
Sure wish he was in the DOJ.
Here are the answers to the quiz:
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/kavanaughs-attorney-no-lie-detector-results-or-therapists-notes-have-been-provided-to-senate/
“The attorney representing Brett Kavanaugh said Wednesday that the polygraph results and therapist’s notes referenced by Christine Blasey Ford as corroborating evidence of her assault have not been turned over to the Senate Judiciary Committee as requested.
Ford, who claims Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to remove her clothes at a high-school party, told the Washington Post that she recently passed a polygraph test substantiating her allegations and also mentioned the assault to her therapist, who recorded the conversation in her notes, in 2013.
Kavanaugh’s attorney, Beth Wilkinson, was asked on CBS This Morning about a Wednesday USA Today report indicating Ford provided the Senate sworn statements from four people who claim she told them separately of the assault in 2012, 2013, 2016 and 2017 respectively.
Wilkinson dismissed the statements, pointing out that they all reflect conversations that took place years after the alleged incident, and reminded viewers that the documentation Ford described to the Post had not been submitted to the Judiciary Committee Tuesday night as requested.”
Lurch:
You are correct in that, once a story is known, and some of its details are known and are spread through a large group, you will find people picking up on elements of the story and reporting it happened to them, too. They are either lying, or they are (in the case of McMartin) believing their own stories. With McMartin, of course, there were parents, therapists, and even police leading small children to tell (and to sometimes believe) the stories. In McMartin, for the most part, I think just about all the victims and their parents sincerely believed these things had happened. With Kavanaugh, I’m not at all sure that his accusers believe their own stories. Perhaps they do, but they have motives to lie, as well.
I usually don’t cite author’s bios because most of them are familiar here, but I think that some “appeal to authority” is warranted in this one.
“Peter W. Wood is president of the National Association of Scholars. He is an anthropologist and author of “A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now” (Encounter Books, 2007) and of “Diversity: The Invention of a Concept” (Encounter Books, 2003). His articles have appeared in Partisan Review, National Review Online, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/26/accusation-studies/
By Peter W. Wood| September 26th, 2018
“Anyone can make an accusation. Me, too. I accuse American higher education of fostering an epidemic of unprovable and often unfounded accusations; accusations aimed not at seeking justice but at wounding real or imagined enemies; accusations that aim to shred reputations rather than uncover truth; accusations that give the accuser a sense of power unmoored from any sense of responsibility.
Accusation has become an art form in the academy. A really successful accusation unleashes a public furor that completely bypasses the question, “Is it true?” Instead it ignites instant outrage. It sweeps away everything in its path. It has its own logical whirlpools: If it weren’t true, why would she say it? Or: Even if there is no evidence, it is the sort of thing that might have happened. An effective accusation silences the doubts of those disposed to believe it. Then it attacks anyone who declines to endorse it. Those who doubt the validity of the accusation are part of the problem. They are allies of the accused and parties after the fact to the disgusting behavior of the accused.
This art form has been perfected over the last several decades in the crucible of campus victimology.
…
Academics spend considerable time thinking up new accusations and trying them out on campus. An especially good accusation, however, soon graduates. It moves via social media to the larger national discussion, and soon is echoed in the culture at large. Celebrities, briefed by their publicists, adopt the accusation as the opinion du jour. Even the dopiest of politicians get hold of it.
For an accuser to succeed, he or she must be a believable victim. Once that is established, any expression of doubt about the accusation can be played as “blaming the victim.” Only someone with a heart of corundum and the moral sensitivities of skunk cabbage would blame the victim.
I accuse all of American higher education as explicitly and implicitly implicated in unleashing the epidemic of unprovable and often unfounded accusations. My evidence? How dare you. Isn’t my suffering proof enough?
But, yes, I will cite witnesses. [Ford and Hill]
…
Naturally, Hill has stepped forward to explain on the op-ed page of The New York Times “How to Get the Kavanaugh Hearings Right.” Hill’s prescription:
The 2018 Senate Judiciary Committee must demonstrate a clear understanding that sexual violence is a social reality to which elected representatives must respond. A fair, neutral and well-thought-out course is the only way to approach Dr. Blasey and Judge Kavanaugh’s forthcoming testimony.
Whether Dr. Blasey will testify remains an open question as I write this, but Professor Hill’s advice is reasonable. Our elected leaders should take sexual violence seriously and all of us favor “fair, neutral, and well-thought-out” courses—as opposed to dishonest, biased, and impulsively reckless courses.
Trial-By-Accusation in Peril?
As it happens, some think that Christine Blasey Ford’s entry into the debate over Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination via Senator Dianne Feinstein’s actions does not epitomize a “fair, neutral, and well-thought-out” approach, but the principle stands even if the application is flawed.
If Ford’s accusations fail to disqualify Judge Kavanaugh, higher education may lose some of its hard-won moral capital in trial-by-accusation. [as we’ve seen with Ronan Farrow & #MeToo; he cites UVA-Rolling Stone; we could add Duke Lacrosse]
…
Doubt, of course, is always warranted. That’s what we mean by “presumption of innocence.” The accuser must have something more than a story. Ultimately, the question is still, “Is it true?”
I accuse higher education of displacing the pursuit of truth and the presumption of innocence. What counts on campus all too often is the grandeur of the accusation. Accusations make the accusers feel that they are rising to a new level of courage, and that they are striking a blow not just for themselves but for all who have suffered injustice. These feelings may be—they often are—a tissue of illusions. But accusation is a power unto itself. It always has been, as testified by the history of witchcraft accusations, rumor, and calumny.
Higher education was once steadfastly opposed to the lure of mere accusation. Today Accusation is its favorite child.”
* * *
Sometimes the “rising to a new level of courage …” actually is a commendable thing, when the accusations are true — the early testimony against Weinstein et al. of course, but the pushback of Emile Zola & others to the Dreyfus conviction springs to mind — but that courage is tarnished when it is a covering mantle appropriated by false accusers.
Every false accusation — especially those known to be false when they are made — reduces the credit account of true victims.
Thanks,AesopFan.
Do join the National Association of scholars if not already a member. I am.
Peter Wood threw over his tenured academic career to head it up, and his small group has done great good work, some of which resounds through our capitol.
Mike K on September 26, 2018 at 8:07 am at 8:07 am said:
There is an interesting example of this on Quillette today
* * *
Quillette is becoming my favorite alternate to Atlantic and New Yorker: long thoughtful relevant essays, with often brilliant writing (this one is well-done, but not brilliant).
I recommend reading the entire post, but this paragraph really stuck out today:
“Someone told me I shouldn’t deny the accusations. They asked if I wanted to be on the wrong side of the issue. Someone else asked me if I believed in the #MeToo movement enough to take a bullet. Over the course of this year, I’ve come to believe that if a movement embraces anonymous lists and a presumption of guilt, it is already poisoned and not worth supporting. I support reporting harassment and abuse in pursuit of safer workplace environments, and I believe we should be supportive of those with the courage to come forward. But I don’t have common cause with people who believe innocent-until-proven-guilty is just a legal concept.”
* * *
The first comment, predictably snarky but understandable:
Defenstrator
September 25, 2018
Perhaps it would help the healing process to start a new list, one that names women who make false accusations. Not to inflict any hurt to them of course, but to help men protect themselves. When the inevitable screeching starts over it simply tell them to believe men, and point out that not to is a sexist double standard and that they are bad people for complaining.
* * *
This one is also a poignant story about the damage of false accusations, and the irrelevance of “intent” in making them. Then, read on down to the next one.
https://quillette.com/2018/09/25/how-an-anonymous-accusation-derailed-my-life/#comment-36924
Alex Posch
September 25, 2018
aunteater
September 25, 2018
[Here follow another accusation against the writer, fisked by others of the commenters (the cycle is repeated several more times); a discussion of the legal liability of the woman who ran the GoogleDoc (really, really stupid to do it under her own name); a good essay on what is now known as MGTOW (for you, artfldgr ;)..probably not the “Flight 93” Publius Decius Mus); and an historical example of hysteria over fiction. The rest of the thread is the usual internet brouhahaing.]
Publius
September 25, 2018
“I can’t tell you how many men have told me in private that they are revolutionizing their approach toward women because they feel the risk has reached a tipping point here in the US….I may follow suit. A thoroughly modern American woman I met for a date managed to refer to me casually as “the patriarchy” twice and to masculinity generally as “toxic” all in one sitting. I was raised by a mother with a law degree who taught me how to respect women, I promise you, and that characterization didn’t wash. I stood up from dinner and said, ‘I’m not ‘the patriarchy’ and I’m not toxic. My name is _____, and I’m an individual with a lot of care and decency I’m going to give to someone else” and left (but paid the bill, natch…).
…I don’t speak for all, but I for one think the US and its sexual revolution, “feminism”, etc., have let our women down horribly. It’s heartbreaking to watch: I love the young women in my extended family, but honest truth, I would never want to date someone like any of them. Every one comes across as entitled, self-involved, prickly, adrift, self-exiled to social media, and lacking all mature feminine grace or common sense. It’s like they all got stuck at 13 years old, PRETENDING to be women but don’t know quite how.”
Peter from Oz
September 26, 2018
“I suggest that anyone trying to understand this modern penchant for shaming people on PC grounds should read J.P. Kenyon’s little book on the Popish Plot. This plot was completely fabricated by Titus Oates and a few others, but led to mass hysteria in Britain in the 1670s, and the execution of many innocent people.”
“Accusation has become an art form in the academy. A really successful accusation unleashes a public furor that completely bypasses the question, “Is it true?” Instead it ignites instant outrage. It sweeps away everything in its path. It has its own logical whirlpools: If it weren’t true, why would she say it? Or: Even if there is no evidence, it is the sort of thing that might have happened. An effective accusation silences the doubts of those disposed to believe it. Then it attacks anyone who declines to endorse it. Those who doubt the validity of the accusation are part of the problem. They are allies of the accused and parties after the fact to the disgusting behavior of the accused.”
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/26/accusation-studies/
Cicero on September 26, 2018 at 11:25 am at 11:25 am said:
I appreciate Neo’s homework, but the bottom line remains this affair is a shitty Democratic attempt. The huge danger is that the presumption of innocence is being undone. Female gossip and hysteria (this latter is derived etymologically from “wandering uterus”) are becoming the new normal.
God help us.
* * *
I have never subscribed to Freud’s fictions of personality (and am not alone in that), but sometimes he did tap into a zeitgeist of memetic archetypes (did I do that okay?).
It’s just that men are not immune to hysteria, and sometimes are worse than women (the original transgenders?).
However, the pussy-hat people are certainly a prime example of the wandering uterus syndrome.
Thanks for the note on Wood and the National Association of Scholars. Sounds like an academic counterpart to FIRE — individual rights in education should certainly include freedom from false accusations of any kind.
https://www.thefire.org/
About Probabilities…
I think maybe Kavanaugh did some of the things he’s accused of doing.
Re: the Ford accusation: I give it maybe 40% chance of having happened at all and, if it happened, 40% of having been Kavanaugh. If it was Kavanaugh, I give it 40% odds of the intent having been fundamentally misunderstood by Ford, and 60% odds of having been an assault with intent to do no more than embarrass the girl. I think the odds Kavanaugh was attempting to actually commit rape are exactly zero.
I find the drunkenness in college pretty plausible (75%). And I think, given the drunkenness, that the odds are maybe 50% that, at some point, he stuck a plastic schlong, or a kielbasa, or even his own member out through his fly and walk around with it in a crude joke, thereby making persons unaccustomed to such crudity uncomfortable or sickened by it.
And, yes, even if he did all of it, I find that plausibly consistent with the guy having been a virgin the whole time.
So, all in all, I give the odds that he was a virgin drunkard who did at least one crude or obnoxious thing — of which he is now being accused with varying degrees of exaggeration — as a bit higher than 50%.
What To Do About It?
That’s easy. Confirm him. Put him on the court.
It is more important for the future of the Republic — indeed, it is vastly more important — that the Democrats lose this fight than that we prevent the court from seating a Justice who acted like a dickhead (isn’t that about the right term?) when he was 17 or 18 or 19.
(Note: He wouldn’t be the first. He could easily be the fiftieth.)
I don’t mean it’s “vastly more important” because I want a conservative on the court, although I do. In saying it’s more important for the Democrats to lose this fight, I am entirely disregarding that aspect.
I want them to lose this fight, and lose the next election through the collective disgust of persons who previously might have been inclined to vote for them, so that they will be punished for being so sickeningly, brazenly, obvious in their utter lack of principles. My hope is that a good spanking will make them think twice and step back from the brink.
Nowhere Lower To Go
The Democrats have nowhere lower to go, short of violence. That’s what I mean when I say they’re at “the brink.” And that’s a bad place for our Republic to be.
So far as I can see, there is nothing in the current character of American leftist politics — no underlying philosophical framework, nor law-abiding culture, nor beloved traditions — to prevent them from embracing conveniently-timed political killings as a way to alter the balance of power whenever the ballot-box fails them. I think they’d do it if they thought it would work, full stop. And I think the ones who wouldn’t participate in it themselves would be perfectly pleased that it happened (although they’d probably issue a fig leaf’s worth of tepid boilerplate denunciation).
Oh, they’re not quite there, yet; but I think that’s absolutely the next step, if they don’t repent of their current behavior.
Meanwhile the left’s shamelessness has been undermining certain traditional/cultural firewalls in conservatism which, a mere decade ago, prevented conservatives from giving the time-of-day to obnoxious, unsavory persons who otherwise could have been useful political allies. (Donald Trump and Roy Moore are the prime examples, of course.) Bill Buckley excommunicated the John Birchers in order to build that wall; persistent Democrat disinterest in similarly excommunicating the Black Panthers, Farrakhan, or Antifa highlights the absence of any such wall on their own side.
The continuing existence of Never Trumpers (people like Bill Kristol and Jen Rubin who, rather than be associated with so crass a figure as Trump, flipped their own political ideologies and became manic enemies of their own prior policy preferences) shows how thick and high that wall used to be.
But it is seriously breached, now. Conservatives used to think of themselves as the good guys. They winced at the unseemliness of someone like Karl Rove; even his employer called him “Turd Blossom.” Then conservatives noticed that Democrats always took advantage of this unilateral disarmament, always escalated the dirty tactics, always made fools of them. Conservatives began to see themselves not as the good guys, but the suckers.
They are tired of being the sucker, and are increasingly itching to sucker-punch the other side. Hence the mantra, “Screw the optics; let’s use Trump: At least he fights.” And also: “one might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.”
This is, again, a bad place for our Republic to be.
So, I very much want the Democrats to lose this one, and — most importantly — be thought icky in the aftermath by a real majority of Independent voters. I want them to underperform in the upcoming elections, as a result.
If that happens, they’ll step back.
If it doesn’t, they’ll double down.
Please, God, let’s not have that.
R C, you are in good company.
https://amgreatness.com/2018/09/26/cowardly-republicans-grant-a-false-premise/
By Angelo Codevilla| September 26th, 2018
“The logic of a premise will drag you to its conclusion. When Senate Republicans accepted the premise that Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation of sexual assault against Brett Kavanaugh was a legitimate personal complaint rather than a political maneuver orchestrated by the Democratic Party, they placed themselves in the grips of a logic leading them through bargaining about how to accommodate her as he was dogged by a nationwide campaign of personal and political vilification.
The logic’s next step is likely to come Thursday, when Ford does not show at the Judiciary Committee hearing amidst renewed Democratic and media accusations of a litany of sins by now all too familiar.
Republicans will be left with the same option they had when the Democrats first brought up their last-minute landmine—to press ahead with confirmation. But by accepting a premise they knew was false, they energized the Democrats’ constituencies and dispirited their own.
They embarrassed themselves by volunteering to be played for suckers, as well as looking callous toward victims of sexual assault. Brilliant.”
* * *
I’m not sure what the Republicans could have done differently in the beginning, that would not immediately lose the Senators looking for any political to vote down the nomination (Dem & GOP, sadly, and they are still at it).
This descent to the depths (while not totally unprecedented) is still very hard to combat, because the Right is standing on a pin-point of political civility while any step off of it leads to further attacks from the Left, their substance depending solely on the geography of the cliff from which the Republicans have fallen.
Michael Anton’s “Flight 93” essay occasioned a great deal of comment during the presidential campaign, but I don’t remember anyone pointing out what seems to me to be the salient characteristic of those terrorist attacks that has a parallel to these denunciations of Judge Kavanaugh.
The terrorists were able to gain control of the cockpits of the commercial planes because it had become Received Wisdom, since the early days of airline hi-jacking, that the crew should comply with demands, take the planes to the requested destinations, and everyone would eventually get home safely (if you were not Jewish or military, that is).
Up to that point, no hi-jackers had ever intended to fly the planes into iconic buildings and massacre thousands of people. Any airline security team that suggested, “maybe we better start fighting back, before some hi-jacker does something really weird like..flying the planes into iconic buildings and massacreing thousands of people” would have been (possibly was) laughed out of the room.*
Republicans always seem to be in the position of the airline crews faced with a coordinated terrorist attack when they were expecting a normal one-man-show hi-jack.
They should know better by now.
*All the more credit to the man who did look around the corner and prepare his company’s employees for any kind of disaster, and even predicted the one that actually happened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#Corporate_security_career
AesopFan,
Thanks very much for the link to Rick Rescorla’s bio at the Foot of All Knowledge. All these years I’ve assumed it was true that such a thing as the 9/11 attacks weren’t thought of by anybody except Tom Clancy. WRONG!
How shocking. /sarc
R.C.,
“What To Do About It?
That’s easy. Confirm him. Put him on the court.
It is more important for the future of the Republic — indeed, it is vastly more important — that the Democrats lose this fight than that we prevent the court from seating a Justice who acted like a dickhead (isn’t that about the right term?) when he was 17 or 18 or 19.”
Some of the red-State Senators (Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana) and some of the blue-State RINO Senators (Flake, Collins, Murkowski and Corker) care far more for retaining their offices than they do for the future of the Republic… indeed some may be actively working for the “fundamental transformation” of the Republic, even if it kills the patient.
One (of many) grotesque things is that the mere existence, totally unsupported by any evidence, of Ford’s bizarre allegation should have been so stupidly accepted as “possible” by so many, both Senators and the general public. The normally good Sen. Grassley bears a huge amount of blame for letting the meretricious Ford have her days of toying with the “world’s greatest deliberative body”.
That 6 Senators as detailed by GB ( flakey Flake is not running for re-election) should be so interested in retaining their offices means they think enough voters are persuaded by such possibility.
That means the electorate is going down the toilet. Our neo-Nazi Democrats are conquering reason and justice.