1. It should have been over when Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, in his opening statement, accused Democrats and "the left" of conspiring to leak the allegation of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. When he yelled at the Senate Judiciary Committee, "This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election. Fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons. And millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups," Kavanaugh was clearly stating that he would never even pretend to be an impartial judge. He was a member of Ken Starr's penis warriors and George W. Bush's scabrous legal team; he merely confirmed that once a political hack, always a political hack.
2. It should have been over when Senator Amy Klobuchar asked, "So you’re saying there’s never been a case where you drank so much that you didn’t remember what happened the night before, or part of what happened" and Kavanaugh replied, "It’s — you’re asking about, you know, blackout. I don’t know. Have you?" and Klobuchar retorted, "Could you answer the question, Judge? I just — so you — that’s not happened. Is that your answer?" and Kavanaugh answered, "Yeah, and I’m curious if you have." At that moment, confronted with a woman who was questioning his honesty, Kavanaugh revealed he is the kind of asshole that Klobuchar would have known well, since she had just fucking said that her father is a recovering alcoholic. He turned an accusation against him into a chance to shame her. (He did the same thing with Sheldon Whitehouse, asking, "Do you like beer?" when the senator asked Kavanaugh about his drinking.)
3. It should have been over when Senator Dick Durbin asked, "Judge Kavanaugh, will you support an FBI investigation right now?" and Kavanaugh replied, "I will do whatever the committee wants to-" and Durbin interrupted, "Personally, do you think that’s the best thing for us to do?" and Kavanaugh was utterly silent. He would not call for reopening his FBI background check to look into his past because, at a bare minimum, it would reveal that Kavanaugh has lied repeatedly while under oath about his partying habits, his definition of slang, his treatment of female classmates, and many other things short of rape and assault that would call into question his fitness to be a judge. And I'd be willing to bet money that it would find that he did the things that Ford and other women have said he did.
4. It should have been over when it was apparent that Kavanaugh is a raging alcoholic, a privileged prick who got away with all kinds of shit because he's white and male and wealthy and has a mother who was an attorney for the Maryland State's Attorney office in Montgomery County. Kavanaugh's unrepentant belligerence and his bristling that anyone would dare to question his honesty was especially pronounced when women on the committee asked him to explain himself.
5. It's clear that Republicans are willing to vote for someone to the Supreme Court who couldn't suppress his sense of entitlement and essentially promised to get back at groups that acted against him (Kavanaugh said, "As we all know, in the United States political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around"). Even putting aside the truly awful allegations by at least 3 women against him, Kavanaugh has shown through his complete lack of grace under pressure that he has no right to even be a tourist at the Supreme Court. If any Democratic nominee had behaved like Kavanaugh, Republicans would have torched the hearing room to prevent the nomination from moving forward.
6. More importantly, though, is that Republicans know that Kavanaugh did attack Ford and others. They know it because they refuse to call for an FBI investigation, which is far different than having the staff of GOP senators question people. They know it because they aren't attacking Ford's story, just her ability to remember who tried to rape her. And they are choosing to ignore it because it inconveniences their timeline and irritates their mad president. This is a profound failure of ethics and morality, but, well, it is the GOP.
7. And Kavanaugh went at Democrats the way he did for the very reason that he attacked women and drank until he blacked out: he knew he would get away with it because there are men like him making sure he does.
8. One final observation: I have been drinking since the 1980s. I know drinking and I know drinkers. Brett Kavanaugh was every fucking piece of shit who used alcohol as an excuse to be a fucking piece of shit. And then they denied they were pieces of shit when they were sober. Except you couldn't hide it. You get them into a situation with even a little stress, and that fucking piece of shit part of them rears its stinking head. Because that's who they are at their core.
9. Ford was amazing, wasn't she?
(Last night on Twitter, I asked how HR at people's workplace would have reacted to Kavanaugh. The responses are enlightening.)
