The Kavanaugh controversy

[Frelga]

What team?

[Impenitent]

All things considered, I'm glad I'm living way over here.

Sent from a tiny phone keyboard via Tapatalk - typos inevitable.

[yovargas]

What team?

I was referring to your reply, which I took to mean that you want to be on the non-"overlooking sexual assault and belligerent drinking for a lifetime position of supreme power" team. I'm saying that I am not entirely convinced that such a team exists in this dumb game that is our country's politics.

[Frelga]

Well, let's see. One party booted Al Franken without much ceremony (with Susan Collins condemning him from across the aisle). The other fought tooth and nail to elect Roy Moore, a child molester, and feel that sexual assault is not an obstacle to serving on Supreme Court.

As Jack Sparrow said, "Of the two of us, I'm the only one who hasn't committed mutiny. Therefore, my word is the one we'll be trusting."

Are the Democrats perfect? Hell, no. But what's the alternative? Wait until a host of angels descends, riding Unicorns of Purity, to run in local elections?

[yovargas]

A fair point. But Al Franken was not a supreme court nominee, he was a Democratic senator that will likely be replaced by a different Democratic senator. Would they open up that senate seat so easily if thry thought a Republican would most likely take it? Maybe, maybe not.


I totally plan on voting for The Unicorns of Purity party though.

[Frelga]

And Kavanaugh could easily be replaced by another conservative judge. I'm sure there's at least one of them capable of behaving in a manner that would not get them kicked out of a Burger King interview. It would be very difficult for Democrats to mount opposition to such a substitute nomination.

I know you are joking about the unicorns, but there's a real danger in holding out for moral perfection while the party in charge is putting children in camps.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

yov, I guarantee with 100% certainty that if Obama had nominated a Supreme Court justice who had then had the same allegations made against him that Kavanaugh had, the nomination would have been withdrawn. 100%. There is not even a scintilla of question in my mind.

[yovargas]

yov, I guarantee with 100% certainty that if Obama had nominated a Supreme Court justice who had then had the same allegations made against him that Kavanaugh had, the nomination would have been withdrawn. 100%. There is not even a scintilla of question in my mind.

Why?

[Primula Baggins]

Even if it’s hard for you to believe that being done for moral reasons, Yov, consider the Democratic electorate and the issues it considers important. The consequences of ignoring what’s being ignored here would be grave. I think they’ll even be grave for Joe Manchin.

[Frelga]

yov, I guarantee with 100% certainty that if Obama had nominated a Supreme Court justice who had then had the same allegations made against him that Kavanaugh had, the nomination would have been withdrawn. 100%. There is not even a scintilla of question in my mind.

Why?

If you want a cynical reason, because Obama, a dedicated family man by all accounts, would not feel the need to protect another predator.

[yovargas]

I know it was a long time ago but Democrats didn't seem to have a problem brushing aside the allegations made against Bill Clinton, and when Hillary's actions around those allegations were brought up during the campaign, Democrats easily brushed them aside too.

I see no reason to think that Democrat voters aren't as blinded by bipartisanship as Republicans are, or that they would have a harder time turning a blind eye to allegations of wrongdoing when there is something serious at stake for their party. In fact, many conservatives accuse Democrats of doing just that concerning the many, many claims of wrongdoing that were made against Hillary.

[Primula Baggins]

I’m not sure you’re right about Bill Clinton getting away clean in 2018, yov. I don’t think at this point that the party would nominate Bill Clinton in the first place.

[elengil]

I know it was a long time ago but Democrats didn't seem to have a problem brushing aside the allegations made against Bill Clinton

Clinton was impeached for lying, not for sexual assault. He was not convicted, but he was impeached. A point that Kavanaugh apparently felt 20 some years later was the grounds for the accusations against him, part of Clinton's revenge. Because he is so totally impartial...

Though I think the extreme difference in power between president and intern was problematic and beyond acceptable behavior, she did not claim there was any kind of coercion involved.

I'm not sure how that is comparable to a president who was accused by multiple women of sexual assault, who was on tape bragging about it, who has now had multiple people in his administration likewise accused of abuse or supported candidates accused of sexual misconduct, who has repeatedly expressed sympathy not for victims but for the abusers, who now thinks we live in a scary time to be a man (I suppose, if you're a sexual abuser, it may well be a scary time!) and who sees the benefit to himself from his nominee as outweighing any other factor - the truth of the allegations, the good of the nation, the independence of a wide variety of institutions...

In fact, many conservatives accuse Democrats of doing just that concerning the many, many claims of wrongdoing that were made against Hillary.

Just how many years of investigation would be required to satisfy that bloodlust? To use the Republican's own words, "Nothing would have been enough." They kept the investigation going just long enough to win the election then quietly decided there was nothing more there. Hm. If they want to talk about innocent until proven guilty, maybe "Lock Her Up" was a bad campaign slogan.

[Frelga]

In fact, many conservatives accuse Democrats of doing just that concerning the many, many claims of wrongdoing that were made against Hillary.

It may be time to look past what conservatives are saying at what they are actually doing.

[Cerin]

Well, let's see. One party booted Al Franken without much ceremony (with Susan Collins condemning him from across the aisle). The other fought tooth and nail to elect Roy Moore, a child molester, and feel that sexual assault is not an obstacle to serving on Supreme Court.

There was proof of Al Franken's actions and he admitted fault, therefore the Democrats booted him. There was no proof of Dr. Ford's claims and Kavanaugh denied them. You could correctly say that the Republicans feel that an unsubstantiated allegation of sexual assault three decades old that is vehemently denied by the accused is not an obstacle to serving on the Supreme Court.

[yovargas]

Clinton was impeached for lying, not for sexual assault.

Bill Clinton has multiple allegations of sexual misconduct against him:
https://www.vox.com/2016/1/6/10722580/b ... broaddrick


Despite that, Gallup polls late last year showed Bill Clinton still has very high favorability ratings amongst Democrats:

Capture.PNG (17.57 KiB) Viewed 14050 times

(source: https://news.gallup.com/poll/224330/hil ... w-low.aspx)

I also recall Bill being welcomed warmly by Democrats throughout Hillary's campaign. Maybe that would be different post #metoo. Maybe not.


As to Hillary's many alleged wrongdoings, certainly a whole lot of them were just right-wing conspiracy mongering. But she did almost certainly lie about the whole damn email server situation, and the left largely shrugged its shoulders (and so did I because I was caught up in hating Trump):

Government investigators said Friday that they had discovered classified information on the private email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used while secretary of state....
Mrs. Clinton has said for months that she kept no classified information on the private server that she set up in her house...

(source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/25/us/p ... unity.html)

I would argue that those lies were far more serious and relevant then Kavanaugh's likely lies about his teenage years, and yet Democrat are acting outraged by the latter while they were largely indifferent towards the former. Of course the two situations are not at all parallel, and there are a lot of differences. But stepping back a bit, it looks to me like one team rationalizing away their team members' wrongdoings, while hyping up the opposing team members' wrongdoings as much as possible.

Democrats keep saying, they should just nominate someone else besides Kavanaugh! But Democrats could have nominated someone besides Hillary Clinton, and they didn't. Why? For the same reason Republicans didn't nominate someone else - it's not politically convenient. Yeah, yeah, different situations, different circumstances, you can't compare them, yadda yadda. Sorry if I find it hard to believe that on both sides it's just loads of partisan rationalizations.

[Cerin]

If you want a cynical reason, because Obama, a dedicated family man by all accounts, would not feel the need to protect another predator.

Even if it were accurate to characterize the accused of these crimes a predator, the accusations were alleged, not proven or even minimally substantiated. Therefore I think it is improper to publicly refer to Kavanaugh as a predator, whatever opinion of him you may hold personally.

[elengil]

As to Hillary's many alleged wrongdoings, certainly a whole lot of them were just right-wing conspiracy mongering. But she did almost certainly lie about the whole damn email server situation, and the left largely shrugged its shoulders (and so did I because I was caught up in hating Trump):
...
it looks to me like one team rationalizing away their team members' wrongdoings, while hyping up the opposing team members' wrongdoings as much as possible.

Democrats keep saying, they should just nominate someone else besides Kavanaugh! But Democrats could have nominated someone besides Hillary Clinton, and they didn't.

I agree. In my opinion, Hillary was absolutely the wrong candidate. But she was also nominated after years of Republican investigation continued to find nothing to charge her with - as opposed to 1 week of investigation with a very narrow scope and multiple people saying they tried contacting the FBI to give them info and were never interviewed. I agree people of any political leaning will try to justify their own candidate while offering no grace at all to an opponent, but I also thing the two circumstances are fundamentally different.

[Frelga]

Hilary may been a wrong candidate, but I invite you to consider that if she were president, the debate we'd be having today would be the pros and cons of universal health care.

[elengil]

Hilary may been a wrong candidate, but I invite you to consider that if she were president, the debate we'd be having today would be the pros and cons of universal health care.

Oh, I'm not saying I think she would be a worse president than Trump, just that I think that if the Democrats had wanted to win the White House, she was the wrong candidate, and... well clearly that's what happened so yeah.