A Man of Impeachable Character

On the occasion of the great honor that is being bestowed by Attorney General William Barr upon the legal team that chauffeured Brett Kavanaugh through the gravelly road that led to the SCOTUS bench, it is only fitting that a bit of a bombshell report from NYT should emerge to remind us that allegations regarding Kavanaugh's behavior at Yale were not rigorously investigated, and that there was more than an inkling at the time that a further look would corroborate the accuser's story. 

Ms. Ramirez’s legal team gave the F.B.I. a list of at least 25 individuals who may have had corroborating evidence. But the bureau — in its supplemental background investigation — interviewed none of them, though we learned many of these potential witnesses tried in vain to reach the F.B.I. on their own.

Two F.B.I. agents interviewed Ms. Ramirez, telling her that they found her “credible.” But the Republican-controlled Senate had imposed strict limits on the investigation. “‘We have to wait to get authorization to do anything else,’” Bill Pittard, one of Ms. Ramirez’s lawyers, recalled the agents saying. “It was almost a little apologetic.”

There was also another story from Kavanaugh's time at Yale where a contemporaneous student observed Kavanaugh with his pants down at a party, with friends pushing Kavanaugh's penis into a female party-goer's hand.

It's deeply distasteful, but just as Kavanaugh allegedly had his penis thrust into someone's hand by besotted and thoughtless comrades, it seems parallel to the besotted (by politics) and thoughtless way the man was leveraged onto the highest bench by so many helpers in the Republican party. I was mad enough to break out of a kind of blogger retirement by the overt shenanigans and the reminder that this is who they are,  and I've maintained that hustling this man's nomination forward to confirmation in the face of his ethical and personal issues should come back to bite the people involved.

I'm just not sure, with the current level of denialism the GOP has with respects to the concept of "enough", this breaking story will seem like "Enough!" to them to see their way clear to finally giving him the investigation that was originally warranted. After all, 83 ethics complaints were, over the interval since his swearing-in, dispatched with, barring congressional oversight.  Likewise, I still think there might be some merit in following the money on this one.

For any number of reasons, it is deeply concerning for a jurist to have masses of dirt swept behind him--it leaves him subject to having it swept out in the open! It calls his opinions into question, as to whether his character is such that he can't be induced to do something inappropriate, rather like a drunken frat boy steered into sexual misconduct when surrounded by his brave and laughing companions. It calls into question his honesty.

I would like to hope the GOP would come help collect their man and undo what has been done via impeachment, but I feel like they are hopeless and incapable of dealing with their own grave moral failure to just do the due diligence, here. It should mean that Graham, Collins, and McConnell are quite over their Senate careers. That is something the people can decide.