Stop spiking the football, conservatives: This is not over

We have a long way to go until Saturday. Jeff Flake could change his mind 50 times and experience at least 15 personal breakdowns about the sorry state of our political discourse, because darn it, someone has to bring us together! You have to be careful about reacting too strongly to things you hear, especially when they come second-hand and they’re delivered in the form of a drive-by tweet.

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“I’m hearing from sources that . . . ” So is everyone hearing something, or everything, which might mean nothing. But it’s just as true that a positive-sounding statement from people who are notorious for twisting endlessly in the wind doesn’t necessarily equate to a final decision. Jeff Flake is supposedly asking to meet with his BFF Chris # for a lengthy discussion. There’s talk that Ben Sasse, who hates President Trump and seems determined to become the new “conscience of the Senate,” is undecided. Lisa Murkowski indicated yesterday that Trump’s comments about Christine Blasey Ford might be a factor in her decision. Susan Collins credited the FBI report for being thorough but she hasn’t formally announced she intends to vote for confirmation. True, none of the above have said they’re going to vote no. Not a single Republican senator has. But two days is an eternity for weak-kneed politicians like these to wilt under pressure. If you think Democrats have given up, look at what they already had the gall to do. They will stop at nothing to defeat Brett Kavanaugh. This is backfiring on them in the polls and they still don’t care. Any slight chance of getting a liberal majority on the Supreme Court is worth whatever price they pay at the ballot box, because it’s the courts they really need to expand the power of the federal government far beyond what the Constitution permits. You can always come back and win the next congressional election, or even the next presidential election. You lose a Supreme Court seat, it’s probably lost for at least a generation. That’s why they’ve been willing to deploy the dirtiest of dirty tricks here, and there is no way they’re going to admit defeat until Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in – and maybe not even then. We can only lose one Republican vote. If we lose two, Kavanaugh is sunk. There are at least four who cannot be counted on at this point. This is not over.

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