Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/09/29/fragile-masculinity.html
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You mean the attempted rapist is deceitful and not forthcoming? Do tell.
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Now, add in a color where when he was answering the question, it was a lie.
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Well he did go to law school.
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So he should know better…
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Among other things, law school teaches you how to avoid giving direct answers.
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True enough, but given the importance of this appointment, such evasiveness only makes him seem less credible and more like he’s guilty, given that he’s being asked questions here, under oath (which is a tactic, of course - it makes him look like he’s trying to not lie under oath). Which may not matter come next week, but we’ll see. His evasiveness most certainly confirms my own bias here.
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Exactly. I didn’t mean to imply anything else.
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None of this matters. The Senate will do what it always does. John McCain will not save us. And impeaching Kavanaugh for his numerous, demonstrable perjuries will bring on an apocalypse of revenge - not that Republicans could possibly be worse than 2008-2016.
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When I was listening to his testimony, before it became too much and I had to stop for fear of a rage stroke, it immediately struck me how much he was just repeating what he’d said in his opening statement. Repeating himself spouting utter blather from his opening statement, no less. It was very clearly a strategy to run out the clock to not only avoid follow-up questions but to avoid answering what he’d been asked in the first place. Which is how we got him proclaiming his love for beer something like 30 fucking times.
Now that would be useful, even for just the lies that we can prove. It would be pretty significant, too.
Edit: It’s quite the list
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Yep. But of course the standard for “forthright and honest,” is significantly higher than “not perjury.” The careful statements the imply something without explicitly stating it are bothersome. “I like beer” implies that he was drinking beer, nor hard liquor. Of course it is perfectly possible to get falling down drunk on beer. In fact it is difficult to picture going through 100 kegs in a year without doing that on occasion. But it is easier for many of us to moderate our alcohol consumption when we have a beer that we can nurse rather than doing shots. That is probably WHY when he was 17, the drinking age in Maryland for beer was 18 and for liquor it was 21. But he also explained his yearbook reference to the devil’s triangle being a variant of Quarters with three shotglasses. Nobody does a drinking game with beer in shotglasses. Before this latest round he didn’t even admit to underage drinking, just that he was AT parties where some of the seniors were legally able to drink. His carefully constructed statements are often technically true, but obviously intended to deceive. And I find that worrying.
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Exactly. The only portion of his testimony I sat through was the q&a game of hot potato with all the senators. One of the Dems, I can’t remember which, was asking about his calendar, which was really stupid to begin with. He proceeded to go through a nearly minute-by-minute detailed account of a regular football camp session. Or basketball, or whatever. He was clearly just running down the Dem’s 5 minutes.
Related: There is only one relevant question re: the calendar: Did you ever do something you didn’t record on the calendar? Any spur of the moment parties, events, movies etc? Of course his answer would be “no” which would have sounded exactly like the bullshit it would have been. And he would have had another 4 minutes to question him on something relevant.
One last thing. I really hope the FBI does forensic analysis on that calendar ink. I’d bet $100 there’s been some doctoring in the past few weeks.
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I’m surprised that no one thought to ask this… seems a pretty obvious thing to ask.
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Honestly, this is the primary reason I can’t watch this crap. I know they’re not all seasoned trial lawyers, but they really get lost in the weeds. The calendar is evidence of absolutely nothing whatsoever. Spending any time on it is a complete waste. The only thing you can do is poke a giant, obvious hole in it and move on. Same thing with the yearbook. The only relevant questions there had to do with the drinking culture and Renate. I would have hammered him over her and then read aloud and submitted her statements from the past few days into the record. At least when Booker and Harris are grandstanding they still reserve a little time for asking probing questions instead of lobbing softballs at him so that he can claim it was all just fart jokes. The guy wrote in his year book about shoving booze up his ass and the Dem was just like “oh, ok… moving on.”
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This has become the plan for Republican judicial nominees. Answer only the questions they want to answer.
It would be nice if the Senate decided nominees who don’t answer don’t get confirmed.
Of course the Senate see it’s job being to confirm, not to make a decision.
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Sure, which was brought up more than once. I’d say it’s more relevant than his calendar.
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The calendar is circumstantial evidence that Ford’s claim could be true. It verifies kavenaugh’s inner circle of friends, that they went to lots of parties, that they drank, that judge had the job Ford said he had at the time she suggests. It lists attendees for a gathering that easily could be ‘the party’. On the other had it goes strongly again his claim to be some studious well behaved type.
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