As I acquire new information about Christine Blasey Ford’s porous and perjurious memory, I will add links at the bottom of this post.

The cold civil war that rages in America became a bit hotter on September 27, 2018, when Judge Brett Kavanaugh bared his righteous outrage and dared to attack the Democrats who are hypocritically attacking him. Hypocritically? Yes, because Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Keith Ellison (among many others) have been spared the wrath of Democrats for having committed acts during their adulthood that are far better documented than the charges leveled against Judge Kavanaugh.

Now, Kavanaugh is under attack for having bared his outrage. As if he were not entitled to outrage because, after all, “women must be believed”. There’s a syllogism in there somewhere. It probably goes like this:

Women never lie.

Christine Blasey Ford is a women.

Therefore, Christine Blasey Ford isn’t lying.

That’s a logically valid statement. But, as any respectable professor of logic would tell you, a logically valid statement isn’t necessarily a true statement. The truth of a logically valid statement depends on the truth of its premises. The major premise — women never lie — is prima facie untrue. “Women must be believed” doesn’t pass the smell test.

That’s not to say that sexual assault doesn’t happen. It does, and it should be reported to the police and investigated by the police — as soon as possible after it happens.

Nor do I rule out the possibility that something like the events retailed by CBF happened in 1982. Though there is vast room for doubt given the vagueness and lateness of CBF’s recovered memory, and the lack (thus far) of corroboration by persons she has named as participants in the “party” where she was purportedly attacked. UPDATE: CBF  may soon join the ranks of exposed hoaxers. See this.

If (most of) the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee accept Kavanaugh’s denial of CBF’s allegation, it is only because the Democrats on the committee are bent on convicting Kavanaugh on the flimsiest of evidence, so as to deny the “conservative wing” of the Court a majority.. This is another battle in the cold civil war, which is about control of government and, ultimately, control of our lives. The Republicans, for all of their many faults, are on the side of liberty. The Democrats, for all of their much worse faults, are on the side of oppression. That’s what it comes down to.

In any event, with respect to CBF’s allegation, what is the worst-case scenario? It is that Kavanaugh — as a 17-year-old — did something in a drunken state that he would not have done when sober. What does that have to do with his qualifications for sitting on the Supreme Court if, as seems to be the case, he has never come close to doing something similar in the ensuing 36 years, drunk or sober?

The correct answer is “nothing”. As lawprof blogger Tom Smith says,

a lot of people in positions of high authority are not very nice at all. Some of the Dems on the Senate Judiciary Committee make me want a long, hot shower after listening to them. I care about the environment, so I don’t listen to them. Some of the judges I have known were frankly a**holes, always jockeying for political advantage and not caring deeply about the law. Indeed, we seem to have entered an era in which few people care deeply about the law, attributable mostly it seems to me, and ironically, to law professors. Judge K seems ambitious but to at least care about the law.

In politics, you reach a point, usually near the beginning but almost always by the end, where you have to choose the greater good or the lesser evil. That’s where we are with Judge K. It’s possible he did sexually assault Ford long ago and does not remember it or half-remembers it now. It’s possible Ford has confabulated her memory of this possibly fictional incident. Lots of things are possible. Few lives, except mine of course, could stand up to the sort of hyperpartisan de- and reconstruction that K’s has been subject to. K seems to have been clean as a whistle since at least his graduation from law school. If he was something of a frat boy aggressor while drunk against young women, he seems to have gotten over that a long time ago, if indeed he actually had anything to get over. And yes, I realize this tags me as one of those old white guys who does not think it’s practical to dredge up 30+ year old accusations against an otherwise outstanding-seeming judge in a hyper-political context.

Here’s the bottom line:

But just hypothetically [emphasis added], whom would you choose: a guy who was perhaps, maybe, based on far from ideal memories from 30+ years ago, a heavy drinker and sexual assaulter, but who would uphold the basic structure of the republic, versus another Sotomayor, who is arguendo personally morally upstanding, but who would gnaw obsessively at the pilings under-girding our form of government? Given the choice, I know what I would do.

As the saying goes: Me, too.

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CBF’s incredibility:

Sean Davis, “Christine Blasey Ford’s Ex-Boyfriend Told Senate Judiciary He Witnessed Her Coach A Friend On Polygraphs“, The Federalist, October 2, 2018

Christopher DGroot: “Christine Ford: A Singular Fraud“, FrontPage Mag, October 9, 2018

Quin Hillyer, “Ford: Confused. Kavanaugh: Innocent“, The American Spectator, October 3, 2018

Scott Johnson, “Visualize This“, Power Line, October 3, 2018

Kimberlee Kaye, “Grassley’s Gloves are Off: Third Request for Withheld Evidence Mentions Recently Uncovered Information’“, Legal Insurrection, October 5, 2018

R. Corl Kirkwood, “Multiple Perjury Counts For Kavanaugh Accuser Ford? Records, Boyfriend Contradict Sworn Testimony“, The New American, October 3, 2018

Thomas Lifson, “Blasey Ford Facing Perjury Trap?“, American Thinker, October 3, 2018

Patricia McCarthy, “The Kavanaugh Setup Becomes Clear“, American Thinker, October 5, 2018

Ilana Mercer, “Christine Blah-Blah Ford and Her Hiippocampus“, American Greatness, October 5, 2018

Tyler Watkins, “On the Fallibility of Memory and Importance of Evidence“, Quillette, October 4, 2018

Michael Thau, “Did the Deep State Recruit Christine Blasey Ford?“, American Greatness, October 15, 2018

Chistopher DeGroot, “Christine Ford, Washington Post, and Junk Science“, FrontPage Mag, October 19, 2018

Michael Thau, “Christine Blasey Ford’s Polygraph Was B.S.”, American Greatness, October 21, 2018

Lisa Boothe, “The Media’s Orchestrated Smear of Brett Kavanaugh“, Fox News, October 30, 2018

Kristina Wong, “Senate Report Reveals Christine Blasey Ford Had an Encounter Similar to Her Kavanaugh Claim“, Breitbart.com, November 4, 2018

Margot Cleveland, “7 Top Takeaways from Grassley’s Report about Kavanaugh’s Accusers“, The Federalist, November 5, 2018