As any parent will tell you a three year old can make an awful lot of noise when he does not get what he wants. Parenting is about what to do when the three year old goes ballistic.
One thing which sometimes works is speaking calmly and rationally to the kid. That can take a while though and is often of little effect in the supermarket. You can go the other route and become angry and hope shock and awe will put out the tantrum. That sometimes works but, honestly, it probably does more harm than good. You can, of course, simply pick up your child – to the relief of bystanders and change venue.
Or you can actually hear what the child is screaming about and see if there is a way to fix the problem.
The Democrats are in the midst of a tantrum royale about Kavanaugh. The fact this is a problem of their own making is not something they are capable of hearing. Nor are they willing to look at the facts presented to date if only because there are so very few actual facts that scrutiny will collapse their narrative. Screaming “Rapist, FBI, #metoo, believe women” is the closest the Dems have come to an argument.
The trouble is that the Democrats have climbed a very long way up the tree of crazy, so far that it is now actually dangerous for them to climb down. Which is a problem for the Republicans and for Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.
Much as I despise Senator Flake, his decision to vote the nomination out of committee but threaten to withhold his vote unless there is a short FBI investigation is a stroke of parenting genius. An FBI investigation does not reach conclusions – as Kavanaugh pointed out yesterday. Rather it looks for evidence and reports back on that evidence. There is no reason an investigation into Dr. Ford’s allegations needs to take very long. Five interviews. One with Ford and four with the people (they are not “witnesses” because they are saying there was nothing to see) who have all given sworn testimony that what Ford said occurred didn’t occur.
Now, were I Grassley I would want to secure Democratic buy in on the FBI probe – time limit and the single allegation. I suspect the Dems will hold out for the Ramirez allegation to be looked into as well. That would mean another dozen interviews. But the FBI is a big, sometimes efficient, organization and that is not beyond their capacity.
Will the FBI investigation resolve the allegations? No, because it will simply report the evidence and that evidence will be very much like the evidence we currently have. But the mere fact of an FBI investigation might just be enough to let the saner Democrats begin to carefully climb down the tree.
The objective here is not to prove or disprove the allegations against Kavanaugh – 35 years on, that is essentially impossible – the objective is to end the tantrum.
Jay Currie 
I disagree, there is no reason to punt this to the FBI, again. The letter was sent to them and they declined to investigate. The Dems and their allies don’t care what the result is, the man is guilty in their eyes and all the rest is just a delay for no reason. Don’t give an inch, once you give in they take a mile. Every time there is a concession the Dems and the left see it as a victory, not a reasonable accommodation. There is no reasoning with them, just vote damn it.
At a visceral level, I could not agree more. But the Republicans need two out of their three Rinos to come on board. These people are idiots but they are, in the present case, necessary idiots.
When you are dealing with three year olds brute force looks very tempting. Drag the kid out of the store and bung him in the car seat. But it only solves the immediate problem. The longer range issue is discouraging tantrums.
By going the FBI route the Republicans are able, assuming that the FBI does not go nuts, to tell the Dems, “we did what you wanted, found nothing” and move to the vote. They can tell their own RINOS, “We did the investigation. Got nothing, now shut up and vote or we hang you out to dry and, hell, we’ll run people against you.” (Flake is immune because he’s retiring, but Collins and the lady from Alaska would be on the ropes.)
Final point, there is all the time in the world. Yes, the SCOTUS, convenes on October 1. That can be pushed off or, realistically, like Clarance Thomas, Kavanaugh can be seated a couple of weeks late. He’ll miss a few cases but so what. At his age, it is a twenty-five year appointment at worst. (If he stays off the demon beer.)
Let the FBI chase down the non-existant confirmation and the outbreak of unicorn farting which I heard occurred at exactly the same time, in the same place, as the alleged incident. Do the complete report. Dig into how poor Dr. Ford’s letter somehow became public. Forensically examine the yearbooks. Leave no thirty five year old stone unturned. Wait out the additional delays manufactured by the Dems and go full press on the other allegations and the allegations which are certain to emerge as the investigation continues.
By the middle of October the report will be in and it will contain, well, nothing.
[I was chatting to my wife tonight about this. A teacher of mine – when I was 17 – sent me over some pictures of our highschool’s Model Parliament. There I was looking, as my kids said, the picture of the 70’s but wearing a robe, tabs and a tri-corner hat. I have no recollection whatsoever of being the Speaker of our School’s Model Parliament. None. And it was a pretty big deal.]
I know what you are getting at, but having the FBI tell them that they found nothing will not placate the Dems, or their allies, one bit. They don’t care. In their minds this allegation disqualifies Kavanaugh regardless of the truth of the matter. The longer they delay, the more they feel they are winning. And since the FBI had the letter and declined to do anything tells me that the following week will be a week of confirming that there is nothing to investigate. How can you investigate something without facts? As your newest post says, they don’t know where it happened, when it happened, who saw it happen, all they have is the word of a woman who is sure it happened but recollects nothing else, and a man who is sure it doesn’t.
I am tired of seeing peoples’ lives ruined by unproven allegations. No news story should move forward on an allegation henceforth. I would write that into a law, if the allegation proves unfounded, or does not result in a conviction, the news organization can be sued for defamation of character. No need to report this crap ever again, just to ruin a life. Once tried and convicted, the life is ruined, and rightly so if found guilty, until then, it is all utter bullsh*t.
“No news story should move forward on an allegation henceforth.”
Poof. There goes the Rebel.
Actually, Terry, I would have a lot more time than I do for the Rebel if it was much more careful about nailing down the facts behind its headlines.
Yes, they would certainly be a better publication if they engaged in even the most rudimentary fact checking. Or corrected errors, once the errors are pointed out. Or refrained from actual lies. Or interviewed a spokesperson for the “other” side. Or hired some actual journalists and stopped simply reposting Breitbart leftovers. But honestly, as the quality declines, the amusement value rises. Seriously, Jay, have you been reading them lately? Dave Menzies? Sheila Gunn Reid? Ben Davies (Actor)?
Not often Terry. I like Sheila Gunn Reid. I can live without most of the rest of them. Developing a good conservative media outlet in Canada is a worthy project and Ez has taken a shot at it. Frankly, I preferred the National Post in its initial incarnation.
Amusingly, at one point I was writing for the National Post and The Tyee. Good times. And both very well edited. Sadly those days are behind us. Having a conservative or a progressive media outlet is not actually the same as having a partisan media outlet on either side. A point of view is one thing, it is not inimical to journalism. But once ideology trumps fact checking you have a purely propaganda operation which rapidly becomes unreadable or, worse, unwatchable.