In her Saturday Wall Street Journal column, Peggy Noonan praises Susan Collins’s defense of now Justice Kavanaugh as the voice of reason. She notes that Collins supported nominees of Republican and Democratic Presidents. She indicts Democrats for attempting to scuttle the nomination from the start. She does not mention the behavior of the Republicans in scuttling the nomination of Merrick Garland. Nor does she mention that Collins did not support Garland.
Neither Noonan nor the “voice of reason” discuss (1) the apparent perjury of Kavanaugh; (2) his open display of partisanship; or (3) his shocking shows of temper coupled with inappropriate respect for sitting Senators. Kavanaugh would properly have been disqualified for any one of these reasons. A “voice of reason” would have squarely dealt with all of the major issues, but Collins did not do that. It was far from the “master class in thoroughness” described by Noonan.
Collins supposed that Kavanaugh was a centrist because he agreed with Garland 93% of the time. But she does not discuss what was at stake in the 7% of cases where they disagreed. Despite all of Kavanaugh’s negatives, do you suppose the right would have fought so hard to confirm him if they thought he was a centrist judge?
Having ignored many key issues, Collins does confront the question of sexual assaults. She says that Ford’s account was not corroborated. True, none of the witnesses who Ford said were at the house were able to support her account. But given the nature of her account only Kavanaugh or Judge could have done so, and their credibility is strongly at issue. Collins does not discuss the fact that Ford discussed the incident years before Kavanaugh was nominated. Whatever weight is to be put on this (I would think considerable weight) it is corroborating prior consistent evidence. A master class in thoroughness would not ignore it.
Finally, Collins has referred to the FBI investigation as quite thorough. But we know, and so does she, that White House counsel restricted the scope of the investigation in order to protect Kavanaugh. A thorough investigation could have corroborated Kavanaugh’s perjury and prior inappropriate sexual conduct. To conclude that no corroboration exists (when some does) and to solemnly declare its absence when the FBI was restricted so that they would not find it is the antithesis of fairness, reason, and respect for Dr. Ford. To claim that the F.B.I. report was thorough is blatant hypocrisy.
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