I NEVER DO NOTHING WRONG, BUT I ALWAYS GET BLAMED

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Lame duck Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, who has so many good intentions that he could pave a highway to hell all by himself, rarely exhibits the courage of his convictions, but on Friday he finally did something right.  As a result, there will be at least a cursory FBI investigation into the Kavanaugh affair.  Good on ya, Senator Flake.  There’s so much more you could have done, but at this point, your frustrated constituents will take what we can get.  And the good news is, you’ve still got a few weeks in office to do the right thing. 

Last week, I saw a post from a Facebook friend about a conservative who was adamant that progressives did not possess “superior knowledge.”  Sadly, by the time I’d composed a response, I was unable to find the original conversation, so I’m posting my thoughts on superior knowledge here.  Apologies to the original poster.

I was drawn to the phrase “superior knowledge” because it reminded me of spiritual paths like Gnostic Christianity and Vajrayana Buddhism, in which advanced practitioners are granted insights into secret truths about the way the world REALLY works.  As a practical matter, if some modern mystic invokes “superior knowledge” – either to assert that he has it or to deny that you have it – they’re doing the verbal equivalent of knocking over the chessboard.  It’s an admission that they can’t win if they play by conventional rules.    

As I understood this particular case, though, it struck me that the conservative was denigrating “superior knowledge” as part of a defiant assertion of confidence in Trumpian orthodoxy, come hell or high water.  I took it to mean something like, “Maybe you’re smarter than I am.  I don’t care.  Maybe your arguments are cleverer than mine.  I don’t care.  All those facts you have at your fingertips?  I don’t care.  I believe in Donald Trump, and there’s absolutely nothing you can say that will convince me otherwise.” 

I’ve written before that there’s no point in arguing with someone like that, because you can’t change a person’s mind if he’s completely out of touch with reality.  But if the point of the argument is to appeal to undecided third parties, there’s nothing wrong with letting your opponent prove that he’s a fool, a liar, and/or a hypocrite. 

It looks to me like that’s what happened on Thursday, during the Christine Blasey Ford – Brett Kavanaugh hearings.  Republicans live and breathe conspiracy fantasies, so their questions for Dr. Ford were aimed more at convincing their followers that she was part of a sinister Democratic conspiracy than at countering any of her claims about Brett Kavanaugh.  Judging from the body language of the opposing sides, Senate Democrats were pleased with Dr. Ford’s testimony, while Republicans were angry, confused, and defensive.    

The goal of Senate Republicans was to keep their misogyny as subtle as possible, and otherwise “plow right through it,” in Mitch McConnell’s phrase, until the witness’s allotted time was up.   That’s why they spent so much time on their peculiar fixation with Ford’s polygraph test, which had no bearing on whether Ford was assaulted by Kavanaugh at a party back in the day.

But as important as Dr. Ford’s testimony was, the real fireworks didn’t start until Brett Kavanaugh took his turn on the witness stand.  Given one last chance to show the world that he was a good fit for the Supreme Court, he couldn’t pull it off.  He was just too angry.  Instead, we got an object lesson in the meaning of entitlement.  “I went to Georgetown Prep.  I went to Yale.  How dare you criticize me for alleged indiscretions in high school?” 

Even if we find Kavanaugh’s frustration and anger understandable, how a candidate handles frustration and anger is telling.  Instead of channeling his emotions into a constructive response, Kavanaugh was petulant and rude.  Wasn’t he an upper-class white male who defied the odds by graduating from Georgetown Prep and Yale?  Has that ever been done before?  Well, yes, thousands of times.  But Kavanaugh seemed to argue that  his educational pedigree should, by itself, automatically confer legitimacy on his candidacy for the Supreme Court.    

Of course, Kavanaugh was playing to an audience of one, and Donald Trump apparently liked what he saw – a guy who ignores rules designed for lesser men.  Like Trump, Kavanaugh bluffs and blusters, making up whatever story he thinks will work in the moment.  The key is to keep fighting.  Never admit you were wrong about anything.  Oh, sure, some of his yearbook comments were insensitive.  But apart from that, he was as pure as the driven snow while attending Georgetown Prep.

Kavanaugh’s insistence on his teenage righteousness makes you wonder whether any of his contemporaries at Georgetown Prep remember things differently.  It also makes you wonder whether Kavanaugh will tell the same stories to the FBI as he did to Fox News and the Republican-dominated Senate Judiciary Committee. 

Lying to Fox News is one thing. Fox wants you to lie; it’s what they pay you for.  And Senate committees these days are pretty chill about perjury, especially if the liar is a Republican.   But the problem with living too long in the Fox-Republican swamp is that you’re likely to develop some bad habits.  Lying gets easier the more you do it. 

But lying to Chuck Grassley and his dimwitted colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee is one thing.  If the day comes that you have to tell your story to the FBI, you’d better think twice.  Lying to the FBI is a felony.  If Kavanaugh decides to withdraw his candidacy rather than doubling down on his stories, we’ll know that he hasn’t completely lost his instinct for self-preservation.

I don’t know what direction the FBI investigation will take.  I’m not sure it will be possible to establish with certainty what happened at that party back in 1982.  But it ought to be easy for the FBI (or any other investigative agency) to determine that Kavanaugh lied under oath about his time at Georgetown Prep.  

His attempt to minimize his drinking problem is a good place to start.  My guess is that there are plenty of witnesses who will attest to seeing him blackout drunk at Georgetown Prep and Yale.  Follow that up by demolishing his pathetic attempts to spin the meaning of his yearbook comments about “ralphing,” “the Devil’s triangle,” and “boof,” and you’ve got a clear pattern of lying – under oath – to protect his reputation.   

If Republicans were smart – and of course they’re not, which is why they’re Republicans – they’d realize that they could have everything they want in a Supreme Court justice if they’d just lance the Kavanaugh boil and move on.  Unless what they’re fighting for is the right to put a sexual predator on the Supreme Court. Which, because they’re Republicans, is entirely possible.