=========
=========
Promoted from the diaries by streiff. Promotion does not imply endorsement.
=========
=========

I know what you are thinking. Hasn’t their been a full court press for the past three weeks?

Sure, in terms of biased coverage of events. In the past 24 hours though, we are finally seeing the masks come off as papers directly call for his defeat and trot out anybody they can to disparage his nomination. Surprising? No, but it’s still important for the country to see who these people really are.

Here’s The Washington Post urging his rejection.

And what of Mr. Kavanaugh’s political philosophy? Here we freely admit that Mr. Kavanaugh would not have been our choice. A president concerned for the court’s standing would have nominated someone of more moderate views for the seat vacated by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the court’s erstwhile swing vote — particularly given the Senate’s inexcusable refusal to consider Judge Merrick Garland when President Barack Obama nominated that eminently qualified jurist.

But we would not have opposed Mr. Kavanaugh on that basis, just as we did not think GOP senators should have voted against Sonia Sotomayor because they did not like her views. Rather, the reason not to vote for Mr. Kavanaugh is that senators have not been given sufficient information to consider him — and that he has given them ample evidence to believe he is unsuited for the job. The country deserves better.

“At that time, I thought [Kavanaugh] had the qualifications for the Supreme Court should he be selected,” Stevens said, according to the Palm Beach Post. “I’ve changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability. . . . I feel his performance in the hearings ultimately changed my mind.”

At a Sept. 27 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Kavanaugh denied allegations of sexual assault as a teenager and said he was the victim of a “calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election.”

In his testimony, Kavanaugh angrily defended his honor and was at times contemptuous toward his Democratic questioners.

On Thursday, Stevens noted that both senators and commentators said Kavanaugh’s defense of his reputation crossed a line.

“I think there’s merit to that criticism and I think the senators should really pay attention to that,” Stevens said at an event held by the Institute for Learning in Retirement.

Americans have been told a dangerous myth. It is an old but enduring one, which gives its beneficiaries unwarranted power — and in many instances, is demonstrably false. The myth is that allegations of rape and sexual assault are often simply a matter of “he said, she said”; that when a woman accuses a man of a sexual assault and the man denies it, there is no way to discern the truth and the justice system is impotent. But so-called “he said, she said” cases can almost always reveal much more — if they are properly investigated…

…This exception was steeped in misogyny. The judges creating the law were all men; rape victims were overwhelmingly women. Women had lower status in that society, and rape claims were one of the few instances where a woman’s word might legally diminish a man’s authority. The institutionalized skepticism of female testimony was based on a medieval male fear of losing power.

Note that despite this idiocy, there was no lack of investigation here. In fact, the most damning thing against Dr. Ford is her refusal to hand over basic evidence that she claims as the basis of her story. She won’t provide the therapist notes. She won’t provide the polygraph charts. She won’t provide her correspondence with Democratic operatives.

If Ms. Leotta really cared about investigating, she’d be calling for Dr. Ford to stop hiding supposed evidence. Instead, we get lectured on misogyny because it’s 2018.

Not to be outdone, last night, The New York times got their negative endorsement in as well and they are still clinging to debunked talking points about yearbooks and drinking.

Yet unfair as the test might seem to the judge and his supporters, senators who want to preserve the credibility of the Supreme Court cannot now look away from the result: Judge Kavanaugh failed, decisively.

How? First, he gave misleading answers under oath. Judges — particularly Supreme Court justices — must have, and be seen as having, unimpeachable integrity. The knuckleheaded mistakes of a young person — drinking too much, writing offensive things in a high school yearbook — should not in themselves be bars to high office. But deliberately misleading senators about them during a confirmation process has to be. If Judge Kavanaugh will lie about small things, won’t he lie about big ones as well?