(09-24-2018, 02:43 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote:

(09-24-2018, 12:29 PM)TJBender Wrote: After talking through it with friends, I'd say there is a good chance of either. Ford has been essentially forced into hiding by death threats, her career is destroyed, her reputation is ruined...that takes some serious dedication to the cause if she's making it all up. Same with the other accusers who've come forward. It's entirely possible that she's telling the truth, either as she sees it or as it factually is. The real people to blame here are the Democrats that knew about this since July, but chose to question Kavanaugh on Hawaiian history rather than ask even indirectly about the allegations. Just had to ask:

"Have you ever attempted to initiate sexual contact with another person against their will?"

Seems like a much more valuable line of questioning than:

“In the piece you wrote, the Native Hawaiian community was not indigenous because, as you say, after all, they came from Polynesia. It might interest you to know that Hawaii is part of Polynesia so it's not that they came from Polynesia, they were a part of Polynesia."

To be honest, it could also simply be a case of TDS. TDS makes people do irrational things, even if it means destroying their own careers.

At the end of the day, whatever she THINKS happened isn't provable.

TDS is a right-wing saying used to denegrate people who dislike Donald Trump, kind of like "Trumpette" is used by the left. It's not a condition and throwing that term around doesn't do anything but make you feel good.

Yes, I know I've used Trumpette and Trumpie. I'm working on not being as big a dick, ok? This country's headed to a bad place, and it's the fault of everyone who's let it get to this point.

I agree with your last statement, although not necessarily the spirit of it. I think if something genuinely awful had happened, someone would have some memory of it. Inappropriate contact of some sort probably happened. Kavanaugh was a high school kid at a party with free-flowing alcohol. Things happen, many of which people are not proud of 36 years later. The nature and extent of that contact aren't really known for sure to anyone, at least no one willing to corroborate Ford's story, and that's the pickle we're in. I think you'd agree that if there was a witness willing to come forward and say that they knew of the encounter years ago, before political motivations could be called into question, Kavanaugh would be unfit for the bench. The question we're stuck with, thanks to Democrats sandbagging victims until it was clear they were needed, is whether multiple unverifiable accusations should be enough to decide that someone is unfit for the bench.

Personally, I don't think they are. I've been watching this with great interest on left-wing political sites, because if anyone is going to go, "HOLY CRAP YOU GUYS, SOMEONE IS CORROBORATING FORD'S STORY!", those are the places it'll show up first. It hasn't. Without marginalizing the victims, and giving deference to them as victims without assuming that someone would nuke their life over a SCOTUS nominee, you can't destroy someone's career on the words of one person with no witnesses, one who's admitted that she was drunk and doesn't really know if it was even Kavanaugh exposing himself, and a lawyer who's already involved in legislation with Donald Trump and claims to suddenly have proof that Kavanaugh is a serial rapist. If someone, anyone has proof or a witness that can back them up, that changes things, but right now there's nothing verifiable there.

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