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The thing with Trump is that no sooner do you think he couldn't possibly debase himself any further, he does. It's not just Christine Blasey Ford, who he unmercifully mocked at a political rally in Mississippi, but the women reporters he demeaned at a press conference on his new trade bill with Canada and Mexico. The icing on the cake was his comment that it is "a very scary time for young men in America."
It is a very scary time in America but not because more and more women are coming forward with sexual abuse and assault allegations. Rather, we have a president who has dragged this country into the gutter with his us v. them rhetoric, which has now made its way into Senate judicial hearings. Before we go down the inevitable road of false equivalences, it is important to note we wouldn't be here if it weren't for Donald J. Trump.
No president has ever reduced public discourse this low. It is like having a bad raunchy comedian in the White House, playing any incident for laughs off his adoring crowds. No one escapes his unmerciful eye, including a nameless Democratic senator if his judicial pick doesn't get approved this Friday, assuming Sen. Flake is finally ready for a floor vote. When confronted over these spurious allegations, Trump's press handlers say he was just kidding. Can't you guys take a joke?
The odd part is that Trump doesn't appear to have much stake in Kavanaugh. I think that he sees him as weak, and Trump does not like weak men representing him. I don't know how any conservative can feel good about a man who cries when recounting a calendar he kept in high school or the names of girls he knew at that time. Imagine if Christine Ford had broken down in tears like this? She would have been instantly dismissed as an emotional wreck. For some odd reason, a tearful Brett Kavanaugh gets a free pass.
Trump, however, needs to shore up the Republican base and the only way to do that is to go after Ms. Ford. It's poor Brett Kavanaugh who is the victim now, Trump called Democrats "really evil people" for dredging up such charges long past their expiration date. Of course, Trump and his devoted followera aren't buying her story. Too many holes. Yet, you could drive a truck through the holes in Kavanaugh's story.
The judicial nominee made a fatal mistake in his testimony -- he provided way too much detail. The mainstream media is now picking his account apart, thanks to people coming forward from both his high school and college days recounting what a heavy drinker he was.
As John Oliver noted in his lengthy segment on Kavanaugh this past Sunday, Republicans are bound and determined to plow Bad Brett through the Senate, if for no other reason than to stick it to the Democrats for challenging him in the first place.
This might play well in rural Mississippi or in the cornfields of Nebraska, but Republicans are taking a huge risk by standing behind a highly dubious Supreme Court nominee, who dramatically showed he lacks the temperament to be a judge at any level. To use a baseball analogy, this is a guy who belongs in the bush league.
Of course, Trump will never admit a mistake. He had a list of judges given to him by the Federalist Society, anyone of which were fine by judicial advisor Leonard Leo. As Leo recounted to Good Morning America hosts, Trump could have thrown a dart at the list, which is probably what Trump did, but got burnt.
Now, Kavanaugh's fate rests in a handful of Senators who are gauging their electoral bases back home before deciding which way to vote. It doesn't matter that over 500 law professors, including 8 Yale professors, signed an open letter calling for Kavanaugh's nomination to be withdrawn. This is just part of the liberal establishment, the Republican senators are constantly bemoaning, even if many of them attended these same law schools.
I just hope we don't get stuck with Gritty on John Oliver's mock Supreme Court.
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