Election 2020

[senorsheep]

Okay, understood. I don't know whether he has that in his background, and wouldn't want to assume that he does, but I find it plausible.

I don't know if he has it in his background, either, but any believable accusation will be instantly plausible, I think, given his documented history of touchy-feely.

[Judge Jude]

I believe her testimony. It was quite convincing. I did not find his evasive testimony to the contrary to be at all convincing. He had every mark of a liar. Yes, if he did it, it's incredibly shocking.

What is sad is how many people fell for his faux outrage, apparently including you.

"if he did it, it's incredibly shocking."

ah, enormous adjustment of "if" is accepted. we're making progress. the difference in your two comments is astounding, though.

[Kevin Seitzer]

"if he did it, it's incredibly shocking."

ah, enormous adjustment of "if" is accepted. we're making progress. the difference in your two comments is astounding, though.

I believe he did what she says he did. I obviously don't know with certainty or from personal experience, nor do I about most things that I know about this world. But I found her testimony convincing and his very unconvincing. Rotojunkie isn't a court of law or a newspaper. I'm not under some obligation to avoid libel if I say he committed a crime that has yet to be proven in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. The preponderance of the evidence is on her side. I did mention in the original post that she "accused" him.

I think it's a stain on the court and on the record of the Senators who voted to confirm him that he is a Supreme Court justice.

[Judge Jude]

"The preponderance of the evidence is on her side."

wow.

FF to Jan 2020

a successful middle-aged woman steps forward to say that as a teenager, she had a similar experience that included a Presidential candidate of your choice. she plausibly could have crossed paths with him at that time.

this woman was 15 years old, never told anyone for decades, doesn't recall where it happened or how she got home, we don't know if she was drunk (relevant here only as to potential accuracy of her recounting of events), and so forth.

she appears before a sympathetic committee, and - based on your parameters - her decades-old story is found to be plausible (which is the new standard). your Presidential candidate is now toast.

but it's okay, because tens of millions of people "believe he did what she says he did."
we know that she couldn't possibly have an exaggerated or inaccurate memory of what occurred, particularly given her assumed lack of experience with any sort of interactions with teenage boys. because - some sort of condescending head-patting of females, who are fundamentally incapable of misreading any situation, even in that scenario.

I don't want to live in a world you sought and still seek - and I'm no Kavanaugh fan.

but anyone who is comfortable with "I believe he did what she says he did" as the final judge, jury, and executioner of professional careers terrifies me.

who needs evidence? that's so early 21st century. let's parade them before cameras and see which story is more "convincing."

then, we render the verdict on a career.

given this bizarre current culture on the left, I can only hope that there isn't plotting already to "take out" a leading D contender. the new rules have to make it awfully tempting. how hard could it be?

[Kevin Seitzer]

but anyone who is comfortable with "I believe he did what she says he did" as the final judge, jury, and executioner of professional careers terrifies me.

who needs evidence? that's so early 21st century. let's parade them before cameras and see which story is more "convincing."

then, we render the verdict on a career.

I believe we should have had a full investigation. But we don't have the benefit of that, unfortunately, so yes, I'm drawing the conclusion based on the evasive behavior of Kavanaugh, who had everything to gain if he could hide from the truth, and the forthright behavior of Ford, who had everything to lose, as well as the fact that what external corroborating evidence we have (Kavanaugh's date book from the time, etc.) lining up with her testimony.

And we weren't rendering a verdict on his career. His career was what it was. We were rendering a verdict on whether he deserved a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land.

given this bizarre current culture on the left, I can only hope that there isn't plotting already to "take out" a leading D contender. the new rules have to make it awfully tempting. how hard could it be?

Do you really believe the old rules were better? A lot of women (and some men) suffered a lot of abuse and were silent about it. That's not something to sweep under the rug so lightly as you are sweeping it.

I still believe in a high bar for a criminal conviction. But I don't believe that desiring to hold the highest political offices in our land comes with a standard of proving things against people beyond a reasonable doubt. I believe the character of the officeholder is important, crucial, even. I believe that a determined pattern of evasiveness under questioning and refusal to allow investigation are damning signs that someone is hiding something, yes. Would I lock the man up? No. Of course not. Do I think he did something approximating what she said? Yes. If a woman came forward with those accusations against a presidential candidate, I would hope we would take them more seriously than we did Ford's accusations, and that we would investigate thoroughly, and that the candidate would be open and honest about his past. If he pretended not to know what the game of quarters was and acted like terms that were clear sexual references were something else and so on, then I would question his credibility and his fitness to be president. Not that getting drunk or making sexual comments about people disqualifies one from being president. But lying about those things under oath, when being honest about them would tend to implicate one in a past crime, that does disqualify.

[Sour Masher]

On the other side of what you describe, JJ, is Bernie's rewording of KS's post to "fix it", a position 1jay and others have taken. That position, shared by many on the right is even more unequivocal in proclaiming Kavanaugh's innocence. That fact is, we do not know what happened, but without knowing for certain what happened, I find it cringe worthy that some are so eager to label Kavanaugh the victim of this case rather than Ford.

That said, the scenario you project into the near-future is plausible, and concerning, if you assume, as most of the right seems to, that of course women of good standing and no record of making false claims with everything to lose and nothing to gain can be found to lie in the most heinous way possible about a man in power in the opposing political party. I don't want to live in that world either. Some of you are so jaded you seem blind to the improbability of Ford making up her account, and while I strongly agree with the need to investigate such matters thoroughly to find the truth, that is not what was done in the Ford case. If Ford was telling the truth, that means a great injustice was done, and a man sits on the SC that should not. If Ford was lying, because of some nefarious liberal conspiracy orchestrated by the Clintons, than Kavanaugh will wrongly have a cloud over him for as long as he lives, because of the shoddy and rushed nature of that "investigation."

[Judge Jude]

there IS a middle ground.

lunatics on the right think she made up the story.
lunatics on the left don't care, because she might take down an enemy.

sane people tentatively conclude that she was at a party at that age, that she had a traumatic experience, and at some point she came to believe Kavanaugh was involved.

it's not about whether she was "telling the truth."
it's about whether she was accurate in her independent recall, decades later, about who was involved in an incident she never talked about.

I feel as if I'm on an island: believing that she described the account she recalls as accurate in her mind - without us knowing for sure if she is correct - is not permitted.

either she is the madonna or - well, the other one.

what if she is neither?

she can be respected for her belief in her account, while we also recognize the lack of collaborating evidence and beyond. I have never questioned her personal sincerity. there is no question that the timing of her account was politically motivated by Feinstein - and I don't blame her for that. or anything.

the idea that "she is telling the truth" or "she is lying" is our binary universe is preposterous.

meanwhile, let's reach a deal. I think we all agree that the evidence that Bill Clinton raped a woman (among other indiscretions), based on the Kavanaugh standard of proof, is far higher (and if you don't know this already, do a little research).

can I then assume that Bill speaking at the 2020 Dem Convention would spark outrage here?
if not, why not?

I'd hate to think that the outrage was only politically selective.

and no one should lump me in with what other posters say. I'm not part of a team.

[Sour Masher]

Let us not revisit this again in this thread. I think most frequent posters said there piece on this already. I for one have grown weary of having to state the obvious about the inappropriateness of Bill Clinton being a venerated voice of the DNC, and until evidence to the contrary proves me wrong, I continue to think the hypothetical you keep proposing is highly unlikely given our post me too culture. You seem to be stuck in the past, JJ, when the Clintons were the top of the Democratic food chain. You sound like an old timer who still thinks "the war between the states" is going on and the South haven't lost yet! The Clintons have lost, and Bill Clinton will never, ever, ever be elected to public office again. To keep comparing 90s Clinton to 2019 Kavanaugh is apples and oranges. Totally different times. I will eat crow if Clinton is invited to speak at the 2020 DNC.

I do concede the absurdity of the speaking fees the Clintons, and many other ex-public servants get, but if they can get it, it is what it is. But they are no longer headliners in the party, and Bill especially has no place speaking at the convention given his past, as I've said many times.

[nots]

Meanwhile, Justin Fairfax is still in office.

[Teenwolf]

Paul Waldman of Washington Post was just as surprised as I was by Biden claiming yet again, that the Republican fever will break and they'll come to their senses. Biden is either clueless, or full of shit. I'm not even sure which I believe, but it's not a good sign for a Presidential candidate to be so far out of touch with reality.

Campaigning Tuesday in New Hampshire, Joe Biden offered his hope that when he’s president, we can get past the bitter divisions that have characterized our politics in recent years. And he said this:

“The thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends ... you are seeing the talk, even the dialogue is changing.”

Though this is something all of us would like to believe is true, it just isn’t. And if Biden thinks it is, we should check to see if he recently suffered some kind of blow to the head. It’s possible, of course, that Biden doesn’t actually think that Republicans will be joining him in a spirit of openness and compromise. He may know what the reality is, but also believe that it’s worthwhile to at least pretend some other future might be possible. That way, if nothing else he’ll be able to say that he gave bipartisanship a shot, and tried to be the responsible one.

The only problem with that is that there’s no evidence there is much to be gained from being seen as reasonable and moderate. Voters don’t reward you for it. It doesn’t get you any closer to achieving your policy goals. So what’s the point?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.ba8052ac25df

[Teenwolf]

Intelligent discussion on whether Hillary or Biden is more out of touch, based on his recent comments.

[revo]

Latest poll from our friends (not) at Fox News shows Biden up 11, Bernie up 5 on Dear Leader:

General Election: Trump vs. Biden	FOX News	Biden 49, Trump 38	Biden +11
General Election: Trump vs. Sanders	FOX News	Sanders 46, Trump 41	Sanders +5
General Election: Trump vs. Warren	FOX News	Warren 43, Trump 41	Warren +2
General Election: Trump vs. Harris	FOX News	Harris 41, Trump 41	Tie
General Election: Trump vs. Buttigieg	FOX News	Buttigieg 40, Trump 41	Trump +1

[nots]

Latest Fox News Democratic poll shows Biden up 18. He was up 8 in the previous Fox News poll.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/

[Judge Jude]

I will eat crow if Clinton is invited to speak at the 2020 DNC.

duly noted

[Sour Masher]

duly noted

Just to clarify, I do mean just Bill, not Hillary. I'm sure she will speak.