The more vehemently his nomination is insisted upon, the more guilty he'll seem if he withdraws without being asking to withdraw.
He could be asked to withdraw to reduce volatility and divisiveness.
If he withdraws, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party can obtain agreement about another nominee.
If he loses the vote, the Republican Party will be permanently scarred.
If he wins the vote, the Republican Party will be permanently scarred.
Politically, and in the short term, having the vote about him can be used by both political parties to continue vitriolic arguments. That doesn't do much for the country.
Dr. Ford's credibility, which was irreproachable during her testimony, isn't confined to the hours of her televised questioning. That someone of her personal and professional stature gave the testimony that she did, without the slightest sarcasm, evasiveness, self-pity or self-aggrandizement and that she answered every question earnestly, that she has said not only that she will cooperate with additional investigations but that she also feels it is to her disadvantage and the disadvantage of the truth that there wasn't an FBI investigation before the hearing, and that, despite the fact that everything about her is the worst nightmare of a guilty client's defense attorney, the Republicans wanted to advance Judge Kavanaugh's cause the next day; all of this is to the ultimate detriment of the Republican Party's credibility.
I'm a Democrat. I don't have to say all of this.
Other stories are about to be publicized because of this situation; she is the start of the next phase of the sexual assault survivors' movement.
If Judge Kavanaugh is confirmed, he will be a main issue of every election for years. He will be part of every public discussion of misconduct. The situation is unwinnable for everyone.
The specifics of how Dr. Ford's confidentiality was eliminated are important in terms of how the media is operating these days; that ought to be the subject of another investigation. The media has no concern for anyone's privacy and will do whatever it thinks it can to anyone. However, her time in the witness chair has obliterated the issue of how she ended up there.
I was all right with the prosecutor's questions; she didn't have a lot to work with to even try to discredit Dr. Ford, and to the prosecutor's credit, she wasn't rude or degrading, nor did she ever seem to be giving a campaign speech. I thought she respected the demands of her profession and the parameters of the proceeding.
What seems also to be clear is that there needs to be a standardized procedure which isn't deviated from for addressing these types of allegations, and that the steps of the procedure need to be published and known to the public. Dr. Ford said several times that she didn't know whom to talk to about the information that she had; she went in the right direction, but eventually she had no control over her life being changed forever by what she had to say. She didn't ask for this; she never asked for any of it.
