BRETT KAVANAUGH/GOP/HEARING/SEX ABUSE/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “It was a hearing designed for Republicans to win. There would be just two witnesses: Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford. Judge Kavanaugh would speak second, leaving the last impression. And there would be an outside prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, to question Dr. Blasey for the male Republican senators. Their maneuvers may be their undoing. The hearing was an explosive collision between #MeToo — the cultural movement shaking the country — and the politics of outrage that drive President Trump’s Republican Party. Dr. Blasey’s memory was, at times, hazy, but her testimony was searing. She painted an unforgettable image of her attackers laughing as they pinned her to the bed and attempted to remove her clothes…Republicans wanted a trial. But while Judge Kavanaugh litigated, Dr. Blasey persuaded. She was calm and polite, repeatedly apologizing to the committee for her gaps in memory. He was angry, at one point asking Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat, if she’d ever been blackout drunk. It was a striking contrast, carried live on all the networks just 40 days before a crucial midterm election. An election, of course, where women are running for office in historic numbers, where the gender gap may be the largest on record and where Democratic enthusiasm outpaces that of Republicans.”
-Lisa Lerer, “On Politics With Lisa Lerer: He Litigated. She Persuaded. Image,” The New York Times online, September 27, 2018