As we put a long Thursday to bed, reports are coming out that the Judiciary Committee vote will proceed as scheduled on Friday, and a full Senate vote will be held on Saturday because Republicans say they have the votes for confirmation. *UPDATE* Fox News on Thursday night (Pacific) has been saying that the full Senate vote would be Tuesday. The potential for a vote on Saturday is unconfirmed, but was circulating on Twitter late in the evening.
RedState posted a short time ago that Republicans Collins (ME) and Murkowski (AK) have signaled they will vote to confirm, and red-state Democrats Manchin (WV) and Donnelly (IN) are also on board.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that Collins was being lobbied by George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice to vote for the nominee.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Potential swing voter on Kavanaugh nomination, Susan Collins, gets phone calls from George W. Bush, Condoleezza Rice https://t.co/toeAxVPmG4
— Capital Journal (@WSJPolitics) September 28, 2018
As streiff implies (RedState), if Manchin and Donnelly are in, Mitch McConnell doesn’t need Jeff Flake (R-AZ).
On the other hand, according to Townhall’s report Thursday night, a “Senate insider” they spoke to said Flake is expected to vote for confirmation of Kavanaugh. I have seen no signal from Flake himself, or anyone purporting to speak for him, one way or the other.
The Judiciary Committee vote is scheduled for 9:30 AM Eastern on Friday. I haven’t seen a scheduled time yet for a full floor vote on Saturday.
I imagine most readers have already formed an impression of how the hearing went today. I have never thought or asserted that Christine Blasey Ford herself was merely participating in a political attack, and nothing in her testimony made me change my mind. I think it’s very possible something bad happened to her in high school.
But there has never been anything to demonstrate that Brett Kavanaugh was involved in it. None of the potential corroborating witnesses Ford named corroborates her account at all. Every one of them says they have no memory or knowledge of what she’s talking about. Ben Bowles pointed out earlier some holes in her testimony, while concluding that overall, she came off as credible, in terms of what she believes happened to her.
The other Kavanaugh “accusers” from the last few days have had less credibility (in some ways, convincingly less). One allegation was completely anonymous, giving no one a means of determining its credibility in any way. But the truth is that the credibility of none of the allegations could be meaningfully established. There is simply no way, at a remove of 35 or more years, to test the accusers’ statements against any other form of evidence. There are no witnesses and no evidence; it’s not just our methods of law that come to bear here, but the question of right and wrong as to whether anyone should be “convicted” to the extent of having his career ended and his reputation destroyed on such a basis.
No one should. That’s mob action, vicious, unjust, and without moral restraint.
For those who may not have seen it, the video of Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement is embedded below.
I will basically present it without comment, except to say that I think it is genuinely out of step with humanity of feeling and the sentiments of the American people to see a man speak with anger, after a week of being unrestrainedly accused — without evidence — of appalling things, and think he is either play-acting or unable to control his temper.
The lives of real human beings are affected by the disgraceful maneuvers of the Democratic leadership and the media. Americans, for the most part, don’t see it as pursuing a noble cause to make the personal political, regardless of who gets hurt. Rather, they are angered and disgusted when they see the political made personal, as we’ve seen with the cynical attacks on Kavanaugh and the exploitation of at least one woman, and possibly more, whose traumatic memories tell us nothing about Kavanaugh, but could conveniently be used to smear him.
It was a painfully telling moment for me to observe the response of Senator Feinstein when she was pressed by a fellow senator to explain how her office had let the media gain access to Christine Ford’s letter — since her office was supposed to have the only copy. Under fire from a legitimate question, Feinstein’s first resort was to blame her own witness, Ms. Ford, for the leak. That, we can expect, is an indicator of how much Ford’s handlers in this wholly political process actually care about her.
We will see what the next two days bring. For tonight, I’ll conclude with a pair of tweets that sums it up for me.
Journalist Charles Lane refers here to Lindsey Graham’s sharp denunciation of the Democrats’ tactics.
Seems to me that if you don't recognize that @LindseyGrahamSC outburst was political turning point of whole drama — and turned it to BK's favor — you don't understand Red America.
— Charles Lane (@ChuckLane1) September 28, 2018
A response to Lane says it all.
You don't understand America. "Red" is an unnecessary modifier. https://t.co/PnHXGVdFB6
— David Gerstman (@soccerdhg) September 28, 2018
