If the letter from Kavanaugh’s accuser had been made public, say, in July, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein actually received it, we wouldn’t have to quickly try to make sense of the crazed rush of stories about it RIGHT NOW, before the committee vote scheduled for just a few days away. 

This calculated delay — we know that’s what it was — practically ensures there will be so much fake news, we won’t know what to think about it all and will therefore just have to delay the Senate vote.

Kavanaugh Defends Himself

But first, the real news: Now that the accuser has identified herself, Kavanaugh has released a statement. It reads,

This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes — to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday. I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity.

The accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, now a professor of sociology at Palo Alto University in California, has said she wants to speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The White House supports that.  “She should not be insulted; she should not be ignored,” Kellyanne Conway said.  “She should testify under oath and she should do it on Capitol Hill.”  Currently, a hearing is scheduled for Monday. However, it is unclear whether Ford will, in fact, show.

The Alleged Witness Mark Judge Defends Kavanaugh

As long as they’re taking testimony, they really should include Mark Judge. He’s the other man (then a boy) identified in Ford’s letter as someone else who was in the room at the time and would have been a witness to the “attack.”  “I never saw anything like what was described,” he told The New York Times. He said it would have been out of character for Kavanaugh.  “It is not who he is,” said Judge, calling him a “brilliant student” who played sports and was not “into anything crazy or illegal.”

When asked, he couldn’t even remember an incident of rough-housing that a girl might interpret as being aggressive. “I never saw Brett act that way,” he said, according to The Daily Caller.  He said the incident never happened and, in fact, was “just absolutely nuts.”

On Monday, Ford’s attorney Debra Katz called the incident “attempted rape,” which reportedly was not the way it was originally described in Ford’s letter. More details here.

Feinstein Not Cooperating

Something else that’s real news: Sen. Chuck Grassley has released a statement about trying to set up questioning of Ford; he says Feinstein’s office is refusing to cooperate.  It reads in part,

Sen. Feinstein … has had this information for many weeks and deprived her colleagues of the information necessary to do our jobs. … Over my nearly four decades in the Senate I have worked diligently to protect whistleblowers and get to the bottom of any issue. Dr. Ford’s attorney could have approached my office, while keeping her client confidential and anonymous, so that these allegations could be thoroughly investigated.  Nevertheless, we are working diligently to get to the bottom of these claims.”

But Ford’s attorney didn’t do that, and Feinstein held the letter until just a few days before the scheduled vote. If the reason Feinstein didn’t act was to protect the identity of the woman, well, that’s now been blown, anyway. The goal here doesn’t seem to be “getting to the bottom of these claims”; it seems to be delaying or preventing the Kavanaugh vote. That’s what Senate Democrats really care about.

A Few Stories Debunked

So much for what we can be reasonably sure is the real news. There were also a few fake stories going around that got played up quite a bit before being discredited. A story about Ford’s parents’ foreclosure case being presided over by Kavanaugh’s mother turned out not to be relevant; that case was dismissed before the judge would have ruled. A story about Ford’s horrible teacher evaluations turned out to be about another teacher coincidentally named Christine Ford; it was retracted. Yes, Ford’s brother did work for the law firm that reps Fusion GPS, but that was seven years before Fusion GPS was formed, so there appears to be no connection.

We as conservatives need to be careful about jumping too quickly on stories that may not have been verified for accuracy and/or relevance. That’s what liberals do — the Steele “dossier” comes to mind as perhaps the ultimate example — and they’re the ones, by and large, who keep “fake news” in business. 

On the other hand, when Democrats deliberately throw last-minute firebombs that send everyone scrambling, it’s understandable that stories such as these catch a spark. They soon burn out, because we (unlike some I could name) are looking for truth.