The following bullet point comments and images are from Ed Whelan, @EdWhelanEPPC.
Comments and Images Assembled in Order Posted
- Okay, I’ll begin laying out some information concerning Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh.
- Dr. Ford may well have been the victim of a severe sexual assault by someone 36 years ago. Her allegations are so vague as to such basic matters as when and where that it is impossible for Judge Kavanaugh to *prove* his innocence.
- But there are compelling reasons to believe his categorical denial. Let’s look at one set of reasons.
- According to Ford’s letter, the assault occurred “in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others.” Her WaPo account adds that the house was “not far from” the Columbia Country Club.
- The “four others” that she and her lawyer have identified are Kavanaugh, Mark Judge, P.J. Smyth, and a female classmate of Ford’s. None of the four lived in the vicinity of the Columbia Country Club.
- Kavanaugh’s home was 3.6 miles away; Smyth’s 4.3 miles; Judge’s 10 miles; and the female classmate’s 7 miles.
Vicinity
Home Interior
Who Lived there?
Chris Garrett and Mark Judge
Garrett Looked Like Kavanaugh
- If you’re at a gathering of “four others” in someone’s home, you’d ordinarily think that the four others include the host who lives in the home. And that host would be the person least likely to act like a guest and most likely to use private areas of the house.
- If the gathering was at Garrett’s house and Garrett was there, then one of the “four others” wasn’t there.
- Kavanaugh categorically denies being at the gathering and committing the assault. Beyond his countless character witnesses from then and now, Judge and Smyth have informed the Senate Judiciary Committee that they recall no such gathering *at which Kavanaugh was present*.
- The female classmate has not been heard from.
- To be clear, I have no idea what, if anything, did or did not happen in that bedroom at the top of the stairs, and I therefore do not state, imply or insinuate that Garrett or anyone else committed the sexual assault that Ford alleges.
- Further, if Ford is now mistakenly remembering Garrett to be Kavanaugh, I offer no view whether that mistaken remembrance dates from the gathering or developed at some point in the intervening years.
- It is regrettable that private citizens are being drawn into this. But that is the product of Senator Feinstein’s shockingly shoddy handling of the whole matter.
- If the matter had been handled as it should have been, the Committee would have investigated the matter over the summer and resolved it privately to everyone’s satisfaction without the smearing of Kavanaugh and the dragging of the names of others into the public eye.
- Bottom line: I believe that a fair assessment of this evidence powerfully supports Judge Kavanaugh’s categorical denial.
My comments
This exactly matches what I proposed before.
We have extremely strong denials by Kavanaugh and Smythe, but only a wishy-washy denial by Mark Judge.
The evidence is overwhelmingly one of mistaken identity. The only relevant questions now are whether it was by accident or on purpose by Ford.
We also have proof of extremely incompetent handling by Senator Feinstein. She owes everyone an apology.
Numerous people on Twitter owe me an apology as well, but I do not expect one, nor require one.
The “key” for me was the super-strong denial by Kavanaugh that put him at risk if any part of his denial was untrue.
Dilbert author Scott Adams wrote about denial theory in 2016, and I applied it to this case.
For discussion, please see Kavanaugh vs the Dilbert Lie Test.
An apology by Senator Dianne Feinstein to both Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Ford is desperately needed.
Thanks to Ed Whelan, @EdWhelanEPPC for an exemplary job! Well done!
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Hold on. Mish – before you were pointing us to Doug Adams and his analysis of who is lying. I did not read it, but I’m going to guess that the conclusion was that Ford is lying?
Are you now believing that she was not lying but it is simply a case of mistaken identity? Wow – just wow.
Mish,
The fact that you give this drivel any credence is, well, sad.
I cannot wait to hear Ed Whelan’s theory about the Catholic Church child-abuse scandal in Pa?
They are all lying too, right? Otherwise, why did they wait so long before coming forward?
On second read — a puzzle: How does Whelan know where the unidentified other schoolgirl lived, and can show her house on the map? She is unidentified!
Similar photos be damned! If a girl went upstairs with someone, and now he is lying on top of her, she is close enough to identify him properly — unless either she had not seen the boys before and did not know them (and therefore cannot identify the one on top of her reliably), or she was totally under the influence of alcohol (and therefore cannot identify the guy she was with reliably).
Whelan’s map does make the point that Chrissie was a long, long way from home when she claims she ran out of the house. Back to the unanswered question of how did she get home? Or did she just go down the street to another party?
From the Washington Times:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, California Democrat, has championed Brett Kavanaugh’s #MeToo accuser, but Juanita Broaddrick says the senator never showed any interest in her 1999 rape allegation against President Bill Clinton.
“It’s absurd,” Ms. Broaddrick said Wednesday on Fox News. “Not one Democrat would look at my deposition with the independent counsel. Oh my gosh, they did not want to know about it.”
I think Clinton would have a hard time getting elected in2018. Times have changed.
When I was in high school, I could tell all my classmates apart, even the ones who looked kind of alike. What this looks like to me is Mish falling into another conspiracy theory.
It’s not so much a conspiracy theory Mish wants to believe in than him struggling for a scenario where everyone in this story can be said to be right in the end, even if it means more people being wrongfully accused in public. He’s afraid to call this BS what it is: BS. Anything to avoid the #metoo wrath even if it means subjugation to tyranny.
“Ford dismissed Whelan’s theory in a statement late Thursday: “I knew them both, and socialized with” them, Ford said, adding that she had once visited the other classmate in the hospital. “There is zero chance that I would confuse them.”” Like I said. I don’t know why Mish buys these dumb conspiracy theories.
What if… this other guy publicly admits that they were likely at the party (without Kavanaugh’s presence) but all were too drunk to recall what happened. Then the whole farce collapses instantly. It would still be interesting to see the complete letter that Feinstein has been hiding from the committee.
Side note: This Mish posting is getting too many sarcastic comments that, given the nature of the subject, are hard to detect as sarcasm. As someone who likes sarcasm, I find this troubling and confusing. Who to upvote? Who to upvote?
We shouldn’t be fighting a BS mob lynching by offering up some other lesser schlub to be lynched instead.
I wonder whether this latest DC opera will trip a wire.
Notice a few things:
It doesn’t matter whether Ford’s story is true.
Feinstein has known that from the start.
What matters is the timing and execution of the play.
Timing and execution matters because DC is still beholden to their audience. (I consider this a good thing and should be noteworthy to those of us who think the government is primarily run by corporations, or by civil service bureaucrats, or by “deep state”, or by whomever.) This whole thing is a play for the audience out there in the hinterlands.
It’s one thing to see the inside of a sausage factory and know that what you see is what must be. It’s another to see gratuitous ugliness.
This is gratuitous ugliness to most people in the hinterlands.
It’s “just business” to those in DC.
If the sides were switched, in the old days the press would have hounded Feinstein up before some ethics committee in a flash.
That may happen now, anyway. In these times, the “press” is half re-publisher of Internet postings. The press isn’t needed.
And so a wire may be tripped.
Good.
That is what her handing totally suggests
The issue matters to K and mid-t’s. But whether Ford’s story is true or false gets headlines and delay either way. Which is the point of the story.
Feinstein sure thinks so. I’m not so quick to underestimate voters, though. Feinstein clearly both went gutter-ball and assumed voters have nose rings to be led by. That common assumption is biting back more and more as time passes. And those being bitten just scream in incomprehension. Typical old guard.
I am going to stop reading this nonsense from Mish. Waste of my time.
Am I supposed to be offended that you have no interest at all in seeing justice done?
Establishing reasonable doubt by implicating some random dude in this nonsense who happened to bear a resemblance to 1000 other random dudes 36 years ago is your idea of justice? Shame on you Mish.
There’s no justice in any of this.
Whelan should be ashamed of himself for putting that out unless it was coordinated with the guy he’s accusing of attempted rape. Otherwise I hope the guy sues him into oblivion.
In other newss, one of Fords demands for testifying is that she can only be questioned by people who believe her. Seriously.
What a stupid time to be alive.
How do you know he didn’t? Moreover, even if not, is it fair to let a man go accused of attempted rape when you are sure he didn’t. What if you were Kavanaugh?
Accusing a private third party of this based on a floor-plan that looks like 200 other houses in that area and a school picture that slightly resembles another person’s school picture? How is that any better than what Feinstein and the Left are doing? Throwing around life-ruining accusations for political purposes has to stop. That’s some Stalin-level shit.
To be clear I wouldn’t even consider what Ford is describing as “attempted rape”. Sounds more like a teenage boy touching a boob. That’s nothing to investigate 36 years later.
That Whelan, President of the Ethics Institute of whatever would even consider putting this out without the consent of the other guy is just as disgusting as what the Left is doing.
From Whalen (quoted from the article):
To be clear, I have no idea what, if anything, did or did not happen in that bedroom at the top of the stairs, and I therefore do not state, imply or insinuate that Garrett or anyone else committed the sexual assault that Ford alleges.