Kavanaugh Hearing

Because they all might not be as batshit crazy as she is.

 

This is highly problematic. How have you decided that she is "batshit crazy?" This is why people are reluctant to come forward. You have no idea about her mental state.

 

It would take more evidence to convince me of guilt than it would with a timely accusation.

Part of what you're doing is judging credibility, and absent a pretty good explanation for why they want to raise it now and have not at any other time in the past 30 years, someone randomly showing up to say "I've never told anyone this before, but three decades ago..." is not a terribly credible start in my mind. Because it's weird.

 

So now she's just crazy? She's a successful, well-educated professional, but she's just batshit crazy . . . .

What about all the other crazies? Surely, there's not just one "crazed leftist."

 

And again, this is why there was the MeToo movement. One point of it was to expose the flaws in that attitude.

 

One thing I keep seeing people mention is about whether the allegations can be "proven". That's not what's happening here. This is a political exercise where the senate GOP is going to have to weigh the credibility of this woman in the face of pressure from the Democrats and probably a hostile press, then determine whether it's better in terms of their electability in November to dump Kavanagh or confirm him. Confirming Kavanaugh will give them an accomplishment to run on, but doing it in the face of accusations that are widely believed and the "metoo" environment might be more than they are willing to risk.

Likewise, others are talking about her being credible simply because she came forward and that she had nothing to gain, but the context is important too as to why she came forward now. She mentioned that she felt it was her civic duty or whatever, but that's more of a political act. She didn't come forward for 35 years demanding justice for what Kavanaugh allegedly put her through. She decided now, after watching him rise through the ranks for decades, to come forward with this story. So this is a bit different than your generic woman coming forward in a timely manner to claim a generic man assaulted her and that she wants the police to do something about it. That's not to say it's BS because this happened at a time when often little was done about these types of situations. It could be true, but I think she will need some more corroboration than she has provided before she gets the benefit of the doubt. Most likely her character will be measured against his and there will be all kinds of people out there trying to find mud to sling at her.

 

I think the explanation is fairly obvious: he is about to be given a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. I don't know that anybody is arguing that the timing is purely coincidental. The issue is that this isn't really exculpatory because somebody that was raped would presumably prefer her rapist not be given a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. It is no more exculpatory than the fact that the Winston information became public in November of his Heisman winning season, which also wasn't purely random timing.

 

The question in my mind is why she cares though. Why is the supreme court so important to her? According to her story she hid this from everyone, even her husband, because she was ashamed or whatever. Only after a decade of marriage did it come out in a counseling session. But suddenly she wants to talk about the whole thing and not only have painful memories resurrected, but on a national level that would amplify them greatly. So doing her "civic duty", as she put it, overrides all the pain she said she lived with that compelled her to keep it quiet?

 

You disagree that Kavanaugh is not being afforded the opportunity to present an alibi in this situation because of the lack of details provided by the accuser?

 

You can repeat that there is a MeToo movement all you want.

It doesn't change the fact that my friend of 40 years saying "hey, you'll never believe what happened to me last night" is starting off with more credibility than that same friend saying "hey, I've never told you about this before, but you'll never believe what happened to me in 1987."

 

I don't think that she wanted to talk about it (the letter was originally anonymous). If I had to guess, and this is purely a guess, maybe she decided to talk when the reaction to the letter was to dismiss it as purely a dirty political trick rather than her trying to do the right thing privately. But at this point, I don't think that we can answer why she came forward publicly.

 

Sexual assault is often not reported for years. I have seen no evidence that delayed reports are less accurate than immediate reports.

 

One interesting note along those lines (and I'm not sure which way it necessarily cuts here), but if the first "corroborating evidence" is when she happened to tell her therapist about it in 2012, that's strangely close to when articles such as this one Supreme Court possibilities if Romney wins election - CNNPolitics or this one Analysis: A Romney pick for top U.S. court? Frontrunners emerge | Reuters came out (both CNN and Reuters listing Kavanaugh as being one of the two most likely picks, along with Paul Clement, for the Supreme Court if Romney were to win the presidency).

 

It doesn’t help that there’s no way or validating or disqualifying her claims, given the point she’s bringing it up...

It doesn’t seem that much can be gained from this, apart from potentially disqualifying Kavanaugh as some are saying...

I’m trying to be fair here... but what other intent could there have been in going public with the story apart from disrupting the Kavanaugh appointment, for better or worse?

It looks like a political hitjob... doesn’t mean it is one... but people need to ask what the purpose of this story is...

 

As much as I know this is a logical fallacy...

It seems to me as though the more often someone has been accused of rape... (particularly by large quantities of accusers), the more likely they are to be guilty...

Which is one reason I initially thought Wjnston was actually not guilty the first time I heard the story, but after a second accusation from a different woman... I’m more inclined to think he was actually guilty of at least one of those instances...

 

What makes you think she followed Kavanaugh's career at all? Could be that the first she heard of his "rise through the ranks" was a news story about his nomination, which led to her present complaint.

The reality is that for many sexual assaults, whether reported immediately or years later, there simply is no possible corroboration. The defendant claims consent and the complainant says there was none. The defendant says she said keep going, the complainant says she said stop. The defendant says he didn't touch her, the complainant says he got a handful. What is the truth? Forensics, medical exams, most of the time it won't tell you anything useful. Outside of literal video or third party witness to the attack, many, many sexual assaults boil down to he said, she said.

For that reason, in most jurisdictions, the uncorroborated testimony of a complainant is sufficient to support a conviction. And that's where the defendant goes away for serious time, not just loses the chance at his dream job. Let them both testify, and judge their credibility. Believe one or neither. I'm sure most will decide based on their politics, anyways.

 

Which is why friends shouldn’t be named on juries in a court of law...

If we’re operating on a standard “innocent until proven guilty,” then we shouldn’t assume anything either way... we should wait for the evidence to come out...

I know, this isn’t about a criminal investigation... but then what is it about? Awareness? I say it’s about disrupting the Kavanaugh appointment... and maybe she’s telling the truth... but there’s no way of checking her on that...

We shouldn’t publicly “brand” Kavanaugh a rapist because some lady said he is one...

 

Ben Carson, Mike Pence, and yes... Kavanaugh... are also successful, well-educated and professional...

But I’m sure you won’t say such things about them, right... because you don’t like them... smh

 

Unfortunately, that damages the credibility of the allegations... she did herself no favors by doing this...

Because now there’s a clear motive that you just admitted to, to falsely accuse him of rape...

It’s as though she cares more about his potential appointment to the Supreme Court, than Criminal Justice... I’m not saying that’s how it is... I’m saying that’s how it may look...

If this is about civic duty, I don’t understand what stopped her from bringing this up one year ago, two years ago... Hell... at the inception of the “me too” movement...

 

It could be. I guess I would think that she would have looked him up at some point. A lot of people google people that wronged them in the past, hoping to find a story saying they were in prison or hit by a train or something. In any case this isn't a trial, which would still include testimony designed to evaluate the credibility of the accuser anyway. It's going to be about whether the public at large believes her because ultimately the political decision to yank him or not will be based on that. So whether I find it strange that she has no trial of mentioning this to anyone for years or not coming forward until now is entirely relevant to what is going to happen next.