Pete Kaliner

Pete Kaliner

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Pete's Prep: Friday, Sept. 28, 2018

Projecting our own "truths" onto the Kavanaugh case

If there's one thing the Kavanaugh confirmation has exposed, it's how intellectually (and maybe psychologically) unfit many of us are to rationally assess evidence, guilt or innocence, and truth. For two weeks, I've watched and heard people in my social media feeds and on major news broadcasts take a personal view or personal experience and lay it over the Kavanaugh case.

This projection mainly manifested itself in two distinct, but related, sentiments:

"We all went to school with Brett Kavanaugh. He was THAT guy. I know him, so I know he did it."

OR

"I know - or am myself - a survivor of sexual assault. The story sounds so familiar, so I believe he did it."

These arguments I saw expressed many different ways, but always from progressives. I'm sure it's simply coincidental that one's opposition to Donald Trump is a nearly 100% accurate indicator of one's belief that Kavanaugh ran a secret gang rape club for years.

To be clear: this is insane and lacks anything remotely passing for evidence. Rational and honest people should reject all of the allegations besides Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's. The Ramirez and Swetnick allegations are simply not believable and neither are supported by a single piece of evidence. And, like Ford's account, the people she identified as being present say they were not.

Rational and honest people can disagree on their feelings about Ford's allegation, but the evidence still doesn't support her. And a confirmation hearing is not the place to find truth. A court of law might be able to that, but not a single accuser has opted to file charges and initiate an investigation.

Personally, Ford did not convince me that her story was accurate. She had gaps in her long-term memories, as well as her short-term memories - which had the coincidental benefit of helping keep her story nebulous, un-provable, and guarded from attack.

She may have been assaulted. But I don't believe she can say with certainty it was Kavanaugh. Again, rational and honest people can arrive at different conclusions about whether to believe her. But there is still no evidence.

Now, Ford's appearance did illuminate just how corrupt the Democrats and Ford's attorney are.

Her attorneys apparently did not tell her that the Senate Judiciary Committee had offered to fly to California to interview her. They also didn't bother to have her sit for a forensic interview - which the prosecutor Rachel Mitchell said is protocol for any sexual assault victim.

Jonathan V. Last at The Weekly Standard writes a great piece today that "Everyone in America should be angry about what happened in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee."

And while I think everyone in America is angry about this... I think it's for different reasons.

In case you didn't see or hear the statements from Ford and Kavanaugh, here they are... along with Sen. Lindsey Graham's explosion.


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