It’s possible this will still end well. It’s possible the new FBI probe will give Collins and Murkowski the cover they need to vote yes and confirm Brett Kavanaugh.
It’s also possible this was the only way to get to 51 votes.
But that is to no credit for Jeff Flake. What he showed us yesterday is why John McCain was not the only evidence that Arizona voters need to start doing a better job in picking their senators. Flake’s insistence on a new FBI investigation before he will vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh reveals him as a man who has no idea what game is really being played, and has no understanding of just how low the worst players in this game are willing to sink to get what they want.
Jeff Flake is a fool. A weak, naive fool. He is typical of the lamentable breed of Republicans we’ve seen too often in recent years – people who want so desperately to cling to the notion that you can reach out with goodwill to the other side, that they are completely blind to just how evil the other side’s actions and motives are.
Anyone with a brain could see throughout the week that the Democrats’ demand for a new FBI investigation had only one purpose: To further delay the confirmation vote so they could find more things to do – more accusations, more insinuations, more innuendo, more narratives, more of whatever they could find – to complete the destruction of Brett Kavanaugh.
Every Democrat on the Judiciary Committee knows that the new FBI probe is not going to corroborate any of the accusations against Kavanaugh, nor will it definitively exonerate him. There is no serious way to do that when accusations are this old, this vague and this outlandish. Kavanaugh did a very convincing job of going through his 1982 calendar, pointing out the backing of contemporaneous classmates, referencing the absence of any confirmation from the very witnesses Blasey Ford herself invoked.
If reasonable doubt is an impediment to conviction, a jury’s deliberations would take all of two minutes. He’d be out of court in time for lunch. Of course, this is not a criminal trial. It’s a political trial. Political trials hinge on who comes off as most indignant, who seems more sympathetic and which side the late-night comedians decide to take. It’s the height of absurdity applied to one of the most serious decisions a nation will make. Because our political class is a complete and utter disgrace.
Yet Jeff Flake imagines himself to be a lone voice of responsibility amidst this circus. Surely, by insisting on this oh-so-reasonable compromise, he can guide us to the reasonable middle ground that will satisfy everyone. A week from now, with the new FBI investigation completed, everyone will be satisfied and the Senate can finally vote in an atmosphere of decorum and decency.
Ha. That will not happen.
A week from now, with the FBI having shed no further light on the question, Democrats will scream that the whole thing was a setup. They will say a week was too short. They will say Trump spiked the whole thing. They will say the witnesses surely lied. They will say none of it matters anyway because women should simply be believed because they speak up, regardless of whether they can back up what they say.
And they will make good use of the week to come up with new charges. If they can’t rustle up new accusers, they will create new issues. One senator was cross-checking the language in Kavanaugh’s yearbook against UrbanDictionary.com to make the case that “boofing” is not about farting. This is really what we’ve come to.
Democrats may or may not succeed at using the week to come as their last, best opportunity to complete the destruction of Brett Kavanaugh. But that is the only reason they wanted an FBI investigation – to buy time for that very purpose. And Jeff Flake, who so desperately feels the need to be Mr. Reasonable, just handed it to them. Two activists who pinned him inside an elevator broke him. It wasn’t very hard. There is not much fortitude to Jeff Flake.
He is a fool. He cannot leave the Senate soon enough.
It’s possible this will still end well. It’s possible the new FBI probe will give Collins and Murkowski the cover they need to vote yes and confirm Brett Kavanaugh.
It’s also possible this was the only way to get to 51 votes.
