Republicans agree to FBI probe into Kavanaugh, Senate vote delay
By Eric Bradner, Manu Raju, Phil Mattingly and Dana Bash
Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation was suddenly thrown into doubt Friday as Senate Republicans called for a one-week delay so that the FBI can investigate sexual assault allegations facing President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee.
The Judiciary Committee will ask the White House to instruct the FBI to conduct the investigation into "current credible allegations" against Kavanaugh with the provision it ends no later than Friday, October 5. It was not immediately clear which of the three allegations against Kavanaugh the committee considers credible.
Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake first made the demand for the FBI probe after a chaotic scene at a Judiciary Committee meeting in which the panel advanced Kavanaugh by a 11-10 party line vote. Swing votes Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin subsequently backed an FBI investigation before they'll vote to confirm Kavanaugh.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, said there would still be a procedural vote to move ahead with Kavanaugh's confirmation in the Senate on Saturday, with an agreement for the FBI investigation that takes no longer than one week.
The tumult comes just hours after Kavanaugh appeared to be on solid footing, with Republicans rallying to his side after his denials of Christine Blasey Ford's allegation in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday.
But a dramatic, last-minute change of heart by Flake, the retiring Republican and Trump critic, threw the GOP's vote count into flux.
Trump did not immediately take a position on the call for an FBI investigation.
"I have no message. They have to do what they think is right -- there's no message whatsoever," he told reporters Friday afternoon. "They have to be comfortable with themselves."
Flake changes his mind
On Friday morning, Flake -- who had been seen as one of three swing votes in a Republican caucus that can only afford to lose one vote -- announced he would support Kavanaugh's confirmation.
Then, on the way to the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing room, he was involved in a dramatic confrontation, when two protesters blocked Flake's elevator. By voting to confirm Kavanaugh, "you're telling me that my assault doesn't matter," one tearfully told him live on CNN, as Flake listened and nodded.
Inside the committee room an hour from Friday's scheduled 1:30 p.m. vote, Flake tapped his friend Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware, on the shoulder, and the two retreated to a private anteroom. It set off an hour of frantic behind-the-scenes negotiations, as questions about whether Flake had changed his mind hovered.
"Jeff said, 'I'm concerned that we are tearing the country apart,'" Coons told CNN. "That the powerful testimony of Dr. Ford did not seem to be taken seriously and investigated -- and that Judge Kavanaugh and his family were distraught by allegations that weren't credible."
When Flake emerged, he announced his position: He'd vote for Kavanaugh Friday -- giving the committee an 11-10 majority to send him on to the Senate floor -- but wouldn't vote for him in the full Senate unless the FBI could investigate first.
"I think it would be proper to delay the floor vote for up to but not more than one week," Flake said. "We ought to do what we can to make sure that we do all due diligence with a nomination this important."
It is not immediately clear whether such an investigation would take place -- or what it would entail. That, Flake said, would be up to McConnell. The committee's chairman, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said he would back Flake's request for an FBI investigation, but there is no requirement for the FBI to act.
"This is all gentlemen's and women's agreement," Grassley said after the vote to committee members.
Shortly after the committee vote, Flake, Grassley, Murkowski and other Republicans walked into McConnell's office.
Senate vote count
Senate Republican leaders appeared Friday morning to have 49 solid yes votes, one shy of the 50 they need to confirm Kavanaugh -- meaning they could lose one Republican and have Vice President Mike Pence break a potential tie -- so they're going to gamble with a damaged nominee who is viscerally opposed by Democrats.
Friday morning, Flake, presumed to be the swing vote on the committee, said he would back Kavanaugh. It is unclear how his call for an FBI probe would change that.
Two Republicans -- Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska -- and two Democrats in red states -- Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota -- now essentially hold the future of Kavanaugh's nomination in their hands. A third undecided Democrat, Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, announced his opposition to Kavanaugh late Friday morning. Donnelly was one of three Democratic senators who voted for Trump's first Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch.
Flake confronted by two female protesters after announcing he'll back Kavanaugh
Friday's events follow wrenching, partisan hearing Thursday where Christine Blasey Ford detailed her sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh and he vehemently denied them. It sets into motion days of high drama on Capitol Hill, with the prospect of a conservative Supreme Court for a generation in the balance.
Kavanaugh, a Republican who played a lead role in the Ken Starr investigation of Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct and later worked in former President George W. Bush's White House, is a DC Circuit Court of Appeals judge. He would replace the retiring Supreme Court swing vote, Justice Anthony Kennedy, possibly cementing a conservative majority for a generation.
Dramatic morning
Shortly after the vote time was set by committee Republicans on Friday in a meeting that started at 9:30 a.m. and Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley began reading a statement praising Kavanaugh, California Sen. Kamala Harris led several Democrats in walking out of the hearing room. She was joined by Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal, Hawaii's Mazie Hirono, Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse, and later, Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy.
"From top to bottom this has been about bullies," Harris told reporters outside the committee room. "Dr. Ford came in and she poured out her heart. She cooperated with the process. She gave the process dignity and respect. The least we could do is give her the dignity and respect of a process that has credibility."
"I'm not going to participate in this charade anymore," Hirono said.
Republicans responded angrily, saying they believed Kavanaugh's denial of Ford's allegation.
"I'm a single white male from South Carolina, and I'm told I should just shut up, but I will not shut up," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, said Friday.
He said he feels sorry for Ford, "but I don't believe it was Brett Kavanaugh" who assaulted her.
"Everything I know about Judge Kavanaugh screams that this didn't happen," Graham said.
Grassley interrupted Sen. Cory Booker, D-New Jersey, when he read statements of Kavanaugh's Yale classmates about his college drinking habits -- including one issued last night saying he'd been lying in Thursday's committee hearing.
Repeatedly, Grassley insisted that Democrats who kept up their calls for an FBI investigation didn't "understand" the committee's own probe.
Wrenching hearing
During an intense, day-long hearing Thursday, Ford, a California professor, testified that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her while they were both teenagers in the early 1980s. Kavanaugh later offered a vociferous and emotional defense, alternately shouting and tearing up on national television.
On Thursday, Ford told the committee she is "100%" certain it was Kavanaugh who attacked her at a party when the two were teenagers in 1982.
As the nation watched, she said she "believed he was going to rape me." She told senators it has "haunted me episodically as an adult."
Then, Kavanaugh denied that allegation and other accusations of sexual misconduct he has faced in recent days. He blamed Democrats for what he said was a "calculated and orchestrated political hit" designed to keep him off the Supreme Court. He also refused to support a Democratic push for an FBI investigation of the allegations.
"I've never done this," Kavanaugh said of Ford's assault charge. "It's not who I am. I am innocent."
Late Thursday night, the American Bar Association took the extraordinary step of recommending the Senate Judiciary Committee pause on Kavanaugh's nomination until a FBI probe into the allegations is completed. The association had previously given Kavanaugh a unanimous "well-qualified" rating, its highest rating.
"The basic principles that underscore the Senate's constitutional duty of advice and consent on federal judicial nominees require nothing less than a careful examination of the accusations and facts by the FBI," said Robert Carlson, president of the organization, in a Thursday night letter.
"Each appointment to our nation's Highest Court (as with all others) is simply too important to rush to a vote," Carlson wrote. "Deciding to proceed without conducting additional investigation would not only have a lasting impact on the Senate's reputation, but it will also negatively affect the great trust necessary for the American people to have in the Supreme Court."
September 28, 2018
Dropped like first period English...
Why GOP senators dropped sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell like a hot potato
By Page Pate
Christine Blasey Ford's performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday was nothing short of extraordinary. The entire country was watching as she testified about her sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh. The balance of power in the United States Supreme Court may be in play. And millions of sex-crime victims -- men and women -- were hoping she could give them a voice.
That's an incredible amount of pressure to put on a person who has no known experience testifying, who is telling her most painful memories, and who is subjecting herself to public disbelief and ridicule. She did not seek out the spotlight like Kavanaugh did, she does not have the experience, training or personality for anything remotely like this.
But somehow, to the surprise and chagrin of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's supporters, she nailed it.
Blasey Ford was up front about what she remembered and candid about what she did not. She was not defensive when pressed by Rachel Mitchell (the sex crimes prosecutor brought in to question Blasey Ford because the male Republican senators were afraid to do it themselves). She was credible and did the best she could to tell the truth as she remembers it.
I have defended many people accused of serious sex crimes in my private practice. In my career, I have cross-examined dozens of women who had made allegations against my clients similar to what Blasey Ford said happened to her. While it is certainly possible she does not remember every detail accurately, she is not lying.
In stark contrast, Judge Kavanaugh was raw and angry when he testified. Perhaps that's not surprising given what he is being accused of, what his family has gone through during this process, and what Republican politicians and supporters may have told him about what his demeanor should be.
But angry doesn't always mean credible. In fact, it's usually a very bad sign when a witness gets angry, especially when the witness starts fighting with the lawyer (or in his case, the senator) questioning him.
While I don't agree his anger was helpful, I don't think Judge Kavanaugh was trying to lie to the committee. To lie, a person has to intend to mislead. He has to know the truth and intentionally disregard it. I don't think that happened here.
I think Judge Kavanaugh actually believes this didn't happen. But I believe it's entirely possible that a teenage Kavanaugh was just too drunk to recall what happened over 30 years ago. And, if this happened the way Blasey Ford described it, it's probably not the only time something like this occurred in his life.
The reality is that this process -- this hearing -- was never about finding the truth. The format of the hearing was not designed for that. There was no objective, professional investigation of the allegations beforehand to document witnesses' testimony and other potential evidence. The GOP senators brought in a seasoned prosecutor to question Blasey Ford about her allegations, but only gave her five-minute slots in which to ask detailed, critical questions of the witness.
That's not Ms. Mitchell's fault. Several people have criticized Ms. Mitchell's questioning of Blasey Ford. That criticism is misplaced. If Republican senators were expecting her to grill Blasey Ford and try to poke holes in her story, then they don't know anything about career sex crime prosecutors.
If they wanted a lawyer to rake Blasey Ford over the coals and try to suggest she wasn't telling the truth, they should have hired someone like me -- a criminal defense lawyer. The worst person to hire for that job is a dedicated sex crimes prosecutor.
In my experience, once a prosecutor like Ms. Mitchell believes a victim is credible, the truth-finding process is over for them. They become the victim's advocate.
That's what happened today. Ms. Mitchell asked the questions she was supposed to ask. She tried to show inconsistencies in Blasey Ford's statements. She tried to show political motivations and improper influence.
But at some point, Ms. Mitchell decided she believed Blasey Ford. I think that happened when she called her a "victim" of sexual assault trauma. At that point, I don't think she was going to do anything to hurt Blasey Ford. Perhaps that's why the Republican senators decided to drop her like a hot potato when it came time to really confront Judge Kavanaugh about these allegations.
I don't think Blasey Ford is lying, and I don't think Judge Kavanaugh is lying. I think there is a real doubt about what happened at that house 36 years ago. That doubt would prevent Judge Kavanaugh from being convicted of a crime based on these allegations. But the same doubt may be enough to keep Judge Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court.
By Page Pate
Christine Blasey Ford's performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday was nothing short of extraordinary. The entire country was watching as she testified about her sexual assault allegation against Kavanaugh. The balance of power in the United States Supreme Court may be in play. And millions of sex-crime victims -- men and women -- were hoping she could give them a voice.
That's an incredible amount of pressure to put on a person who has no known experience testifying, who is telling her most painful memories, and who is subjecting herself to public disbelief and ridicule. She did not seek out the spotlight like Kavanaugh did, she does not have the experience, training or personality for anything remotely like this.
But somehow, to the surprise and chagrin of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's supporters, she nailed it.
Blasey Ford was up front about what she remembered and candid about what she did not. She was not defensive when pressed by Rachel Mitchell (the sex crimes prosecutor brought in to question Blasey Ford because the male Republican senators were afraid to do it themselves). She was credible and did the best she could to tell the truth as she remembers it.
I have defended many people accused of serious sex crimes in my private practice. In my career, I have cross-examined dozens of women who had made allegations against my clients similar to what Blasey Ford said happened to her. While it is certainly possible she does not remember every detail accurately, she is not lying.
In stark contrast, Judge Kavanaugh was raw and angry when he testified. Perhaps that's not surprising given what he is being accused of, what his family has gone through during this process, and what Republican politicians and supporters may have told him about what his demeanor should be.
But angry doesn't always mean credible. In fact, it's usually a very bad sign when a witness gets angry, especially when the witness starts fighting with the lawyer (or in his case, the senator) questioning him.
While I don't agree his anger was helpful, I don't think Judge Kavanaugh was trying to lie to the committee. To lie, a person has to intend to mislead. He has to know the truth and intentionally disregard it. I don't think that happened here.
I think Judge Kavanaugh actually believes this didn't happen. But I believe it's entirely possible that a teenage Kavanaugh was just too drunk to recall what happened over 30 years ago. And, if this happened the way Blasey Ford described it, it's probably not the only time something like this occurred in his life.
The reality is that this process -- this hearing -- was never about finding the truth. The format of the hearing was not designed for that. There was no objective, professional investigation of the allegations beforehand to document witnesses' testimony and other potential evidence. The GOP senators brought in a seasoned prosecutor to question Blasey Ford about her allegations, but only gave her five-minute slots in which to ask detailed, critical questions of the witness.
That's not Ms. Mitchell's fault. Several people have criticized Ms. Mitchell's questioning of Blasey Ford. That criticism is misplaced. If Republican senators were expecting her to grill Blasey Ford and try to poke holes in her story, then they don't know anything about career sex crime prosecutors.
If they wanted a lawyer to rake Blasey Ford over the coals and try to suggest she wasn't telling the truth, they should have hired someone like me -- a criminal defense lawyer. The worst person to hire for that job is a dedicated sex crimes prosecutor.
In my experience, once a prosecutor like Ms. Mitchell believes a victim is credible, the truth-finding process is over for them. They become the victim's advocate.
That's what happened today. Ms. Mitchell asked the questions she was supposed to ask. She tried to show inconsistencies in Blasey Ford's statements. She tried to show political motivations and improper influence.
But at some point, Ms. Mitchell decided she believed Blasey Ford. I think that happened when she called her a "victim" of sexual assault trauma. At that point, I don't think she was going to do anything to hurt Blasey Ford. Perhaps that's why the Republican senators decided to drop her like a hot potato when it came time to really confront Judge Kavanaugh about these allegations.
I don't think Blasey Ford is lying, and I don't think Judge Kavanaugh is lying. I think there is a real doubt about what happened at that house 36 years ago. That doubt would prevent Judge Kavanaugh from being convicted of a crime based on these allegations. But the same doubt may be enough to keep Judge Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court.
Republicans indicted themselves
With Christine Blasey Ford, Republicans indicted themselves
By Frida Ghitis
If you watched Thursday's riveting testimony given by professor Christine Blasey Ford, you not only saw an extraordinarily courageous woman push through her fear to tell a committee comprised mostly of men the harrowing story of being sexually assaulted when she was a 15-year-old girl. You also saw the mask ripped off the Republican Party -- now turned into Trump's party -- and exposed as an accomplice in efforts to preserve some of the most pernicious forms of sexism.
Republicans, who once proclaimed themselves the champions of family values, have a morality problem. When Ford -- and then others -- came forward to share their stories of being attacked by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Republicans knew they had an issue. How would they protect Kavanaugh without seeming disrespectful to women?
"Seeming" is the operative word. It is obvious that finding the truth was never their goal. The goal was always to put Kavanaugh on the court. (Kavanaugh, thus far, has denied all allegations against him, and we have yet to hear him testify.)
Republicans have absorbed Trump's most toxic traits, and their leaders are now infused with them. They equivocate, lie and accidentally let out the truth.
When Ford, looking terrified but determined, faced the Judiciary Committee, Republicans couldn't even muster the courage to ask the questions themselves. They had to hire a female prosecutor (a "female assistant" is how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell describer her, another inadvertent flash from the 1950s.)
Every one of the 11 Republican senators on the committee is a white man. They didn't trust themselves not to appear hostile to Ford. They were right to worry. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley barely spoke to Ford. He opened the hearing with a brief attempt to seem fair, followed by a partisan screed that confirmed he had no intention of getting at the truth.
Their hired hand, Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor, was dismally ineffective. But then, she had the impossible task of undercutting Ford's credibility. And few, if any, who saw her tell her story doubted for a second that she was telling the truth.
Ford had to choke back tears describing Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge trapping her in a room, Kavanaugh pinning her to the bed, grinding on top of her and putting his hand over her mouth when she tried to cry for help, leaving her with lifelong claustrophobia, anxiety and other symptoms.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, declared "I believe you," noting how, in what is characteristic of truthful witnesses, she acknowledged not remembering some of the details. When asked what she remembers most, she winced, "The uproarious laughter." Kavanaugh and Judge "were having fun at my expense."
When Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked how Ford is sure it was Kavanaugh, Ford replied, "The same way I know I'm talking to you."
Grassley became defensive, irritable, knowing the hearing was a disaster. It will energize women like nothing since Trump's "grab them by the p---y" and his subsequent election. The hearing didn't just hurt Kavanaugh -- it inflicted and immediately infected a wound in what was once an honorable party.
The clearest proof that the party's old claim to morality has been flushed out with the Trump revolution is a new NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll with a mind-boggling result: A majority of Republicans -- 54% -- say that if Ford is telling the truth, Kavanaugh should still be confirmed.
In the midst of the #MeToo movement, Republicans have shown the country they are actively standing against efforts to repair one of the longstanding injustices in society: the attitude that allows men to exploit and abuse women. The party has adopted Trump's transactional approach to every issue, regardless of its moral and ethical content.
It's all about cost-benefit. They want Kavanaugh on the court, and if that means rejecting pleas for a fair investigation, then reject they will.
But Ford was truthful, credible, and what's worse for Republicans, inspiring.
Republicans tried to put Ford on trial, but they ended up indicting themselves.
By Frida Ghitis
If you watched Thursday's riveting testimony given by professor Christine Blasey Ford, you not only saw an extraordinarily courageous woman push through her fear to tell a committee comprised mostly of men the harrowing story of being sexually assaulted when she was a 15-year-old girl. You also saw the mask ripped off the Republican Party -- now turned into Trump's party -- and exposed as an accomplice in efforts to preserve some of the most pernicious forms of sexism.
Republicans, who once proclaimed themselves the champions of family values, have a morality problem. When Ford -- and then others -- came forward to share their stories of being attacked by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court, Republicans knew they had an issue. How would they protect Kavanaugh without seeming disrespectful to women?
"Seeming" is the operative word. It is obvious that finding the truth was never their goal. The goal was always to put Kavanaugh on the court. (Kavanaugh, thus far, has denied all allegations against him, and we have yet to hear him testify.)
Republicans have absorbed Trump's most toxic traits, and their leaders are now infused with them. They equivocate, lie and accidentally let out the truth.
When Ford, looking terrified but determined, faced the Judiciary Committee, Republicans couldn't even muster the courage to ask the questions themselves. They had to hire a female prosecutor (a "female assistant" is how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell describer her, another inadvertent flash from the 1950s.)
Every one of the 11 Republican senators on the committee is a white man. They didn't trust themselves not to appear hostile to Ford. They were right to worry. Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley barely spoke to Ford. He opened the hearing with a brief attempt to seem fair, followed by a partisan screed that confirmed he had no intention of getting at the truth.
Their hired hand, Rachel Mitchell, an Arizona prosecutor, was dismally ineffective. But then, she had the impossible task of undercutting Ford's credibility. And few, if any, who saw her tell her story doubted for a second that she was telling the truth.
Ford had to choke back tears describing Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge trapping her in a room, Kavanaugh pinning her to the bed, grinding on top of her and putting his hand over her mouth when she tried to cry for help, leaving her with lifelong claustrophobia, anxiety and other symptoms.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, declared "I believe you," noting how, in what is characteristic of truthful witnesses, she acknowledged not remembering some of the details. When asked what she remembers most, she winced, "The uproarious laughter." Kavanaugh and Judge "were having fun at my expense."
When Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein asked how Ford is sure it was Kavanaugh, Ford replied, "The same way I know I'm talking to you."
Grassley became defensive, irritable, knowing the hearing was a disaster. It will energize women like nothing since Trump's "grab them by the p---y" and his subsequent election. The hearing didn't just hurt Kavanaugh -- it inflicted and immediately infected a wound in what was once an honorable party.
The clearest proof that the party's old claim to morality has been flushed out with the Trump revolution is a new NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll with a mind-boggling result: A majority of Republicans -- 54% -- say that if Ford is telling the truth, Kavanaugh should still be confirmed.
In the midst of the #MeToo movement, Republicans have shown the country they are actively standing against efforts to repair one of the longstanding injustices in society: the attitude that allows men to exploit and abuse women. The party has adopted Trump's transactional approach to every issue, regardless of its moral and ethical content.
It's all about cost-benefit. They want Kavanaugh on the court, and if that means rejecting pleas for a fair investigation, then reject they will.
But Ford was truthful, credible, and what's worse for Republicans, inspiring.
Republicans tried to put Ford on trial, but they ended up indicting themselves.
Hayabusa asteroid rovers send back first footage
Japan's Hayabusa asteroid rovers send back first footage
By Euan McKirdy
Japan's intrepid, hopping asteroid rovers have sent back footage and high-resolution imagery of the surface of the celestial body they have been exploring, according to tweets from Japan's space agency.
In a series of six tweets, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed the first images taken by the two rovers -- including a 15-frame video -- from the surface of Ryugu, a kilometer-wide asteroid that has been visited by the agency's Hayabusa spacecraft.
"Rover-1B succeeded in shooting a movie on Ryugu's surface! The movie has 15 frames captured on September 23, 2018 from 10:34 - 11:48 JST. Enjoy 'standing' on the surface of this asteroid!"
A series of specially designed cameras -- four on the first rover and three on the second -- are taking stereo images of the asteroid's surface. The rovers are also equipped with temperature gauges and optical sensors as well as an accelerometer and a set of gyroscopes.
JAXA also released a high-res photo of the asteroid's surface taken as Hayabusa descended to the surface to unload Rover-1A and 1-B.
The agency also posted photos on its official Hayabusa-2 website which showed the location of the image snapped by Hayabusa on the asteroid's surface.
Hopping robots
Unlike NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars, which has six wheels, the 1kg autonomous Ryugu rovers move about by hopping.
"Gravity on the surface of Ryugu is very weak, so a rover propelled by normal wheels or crawlers would float upwards as soon as it started to move," JAXA scientists explained.
"Therefore, this hopping mechanism was adopted for moving across the surface of such small celestial bodies. The rover is expected to remain in the air for up to 15 minutes after a single hop before landing, and to move up to 15 m (50 feet) horizontally."
Some of the JAXA tweets confirmed that the rovers had successfully hopped since landing on the surface.
The imagery -- the first taken from rovers from an asteroid -- shows a rocky landscape against the backdrop of space.
The agency made history on Sunday by successfully landing the two unmanned rovers on Ryugu.
A third rover called MASCOT will be launched from Hayabusa-2 in early October.
Material to be collected
Later in the mission, scheduled for the end of October, the spacecraft will land on the asteroid after blowing a small crater in it using explosives, so samples that haven't been exposed to space can be gathered from below the object's surface.
After examining the far distant object and taking samples, Hayabusa-2 will depart Ryugu in December 2019 before returning to Earth by the end of 2020 with its cargo of samples.
If successful, JAXA has said it will be the "world's first sample return mission to a C-type asteroid."
Japanese scientists are racing NASA for that achievement, with the US agency's sample retrieval mission due to arrive back on Earth in 2023.
By Euan McKirdy
Japan's intrepid, hopping asteroid rovers have sent back footage and high-resolution imagery of the surface of the celestial body they have been exploring, according to tweets from Japan's space agency.
In a series of six tweets, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) showed the first images taken by the two rovers -- including a 15-frame video -- from the surface of Ryugu, a kilometer-wide asteroid that has been visited by the agency's Hayabusa spacecraft.
"Rover-1B succeeded in shooting a movie on Ryugu's surface! The movie has 15 frames captured on September 23, 2018 from 10:34 - 11:48 JST. Enjoy 'standing' on the surface of this asteroid!"A series of specially designed cameras -- four on the first rover and three on the second -- are taking stereo images of the asteroid's surface. The rovers are also equipped with temperature gauges and optical sensors as well as an accelerometer and a set of gyroscopes.
JAXA also released a high-res photo of the asteroid's surface taken as Hayabusa descended to the surface to unload Rover-1A and 1-B.
The agency also posted photos on its official Hayabusa-2 website which showed the location of the image snapped by Hayabusa on the asteroid's surface.
Hopping robots
Unlike NASA's Curiosity Rover on Mars, which has six wheels, the 1kg autonomous Ryugu rovers move about by hopping.
"Gravity on the surface of Ryugu is very weak, so a rover propelled by normal wheels or crawlers would float upwards as soon as it started to move," JAXA scientists explained.
"Therefore, this hopping mechanism was adopted for moving across the surface of such small celestial bodies. The rover is expected to remain in the air for up to 15 minutes after a single hop before landing, and to move up to 15 m (50 feet) horizontally."
Some of the JAXA tweets confirmed that the rovers had successfully hopped since landing on the surface.
The agency made history on Sunday by successfully landing the two unmanned rovers on Ryugu.
A third rover called MASCOT will be launched from Hayabusa-2 in early October.
Material to be collected
Later in the mission, scheduled for the end of October, the spacecraft will land on the asteroid after blowing a small crater in it using explosives, so samples that haven't been exposed to space can be gathered from below the object's surface.
After examining the far distant object and taking samples, Hayabusa-2 will depart Ryugu in December 2019 before returning to Earth by the end of 2020 with its cargo of samples.
If successful, JAXA has said it will be the "world's first sample return mission to a C-type asteroid."
Japanese scientists are racing NASA for that achievement, with the US agency's sample retrieval mission due to arrive back on Earth in 2023.
A painful hearing
A painful hearing lays bare nation's political flaws
Analysis by Stephen Collinson
A searing day when two lives were torn apart on live television left a divided America facing more fundamental questions than whether Brett Kavanaugh should sit on the Supreme Court.
The Senate hearing meant to find the truth about Christine Blasey Ford's accusation that President Donald Trump's nominee assaulted her in the 1980s degenerated into one of the most distasteful political spectacles in many years.
What did or didn't happen at a teenage house party in the Washington, DC, suburbs is now playing out 36 years later in an improbable twist of history. For both the accuser and the accused, it is a personal tragedy.
But it is a national tragedy that the confirmation process has exposed a ruptured political system utterly unable to find consensus over an issue as serious as an alleged sexual assault, even in the #MeToo era.
Instead of showing how far Washington has come in understanding the quintessential challenges of an experience many women know but few talk about, Thursday's showdown showed how far it has to go.
The day began with Ford appearing before the American public for the first time, declaring: "It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell you the truth."
It ended after an aggressive Kavanaugh warned in a tirade directed at Democrats who backed Ford's allegations, "You sowed the wind, for decades to come. I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind."
If the evidence of Thursday is any guide, where you stand on Ford and her allegations depends on how you vote. Republicans are prone to believe that Democrats have orchestrated or at least exploited claims of misconduct by Kavanaugh. Democrats see the administration's refusal to reopen an FBI background check into the judge as proof that Republicans are rushing the process and trying to hide the truth.
And whatever Kavanaugh's fate, the fight by Republicans to establish a generational conservative majority on the court, and the Democrats' bid to block them, will plunge the nation deeper into the bitter tribalism that has worsened in the age of Trump.
Should Kavanaugh reach the court, millions of women and liberals will see him as the illegitimate product of an immoral confirmation process -- a reality that will impugn the integrity of one of the few bodies in American civic life that has retained some public trust.
If he goes down, his plight will only enrage the conservative base and deepen the determination of partisans to avenge what they see as a Democratic smear campaign, in a way that will further polarize the nation.
And for all the agony of nine hours of emotionally draining testimony, it's not yet clear the politics around Kavanaugh's nomination -- stalled by a flurry of accusations of sexual misconduct -- has changed all that much.
A strong band of Republicans in the Senate want to push on fast -- as soon as Friday with a series of votes that could see Kavanaugh confirmed next week -- in a move that would validate a long-sought dream of the party's conservative base but risk alienating the suburban women who could decide November's midterm elections.
But GOP leaders still cannot be sure that wavering Republicans like Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Arizona's Jeff Flake will be on board for a vote in which the GOP can only face one defection if all the Democrats hang together.
Ford '100%' sure
Thursday's hearing echoed another Supreme Court confirmation fight hung up on allegations of improper behavior by a powerful man -- the 1991 process involving Justice Clarence Thomas and his accuser Anita Hill.
Ford, voice quivering, said she was "terrified" to reveal herself before the world but was "100%" sure that Kavanaugh was the teenager who assaulted her in 1982, on an evening she said left her with such acute fears of entrapment that she built two front doors in her house.
Ford held the nation in thrall, as viewers inside the hearing room and outside shed tears. Her descriptions recalled the terror-struck teenager she was at the time of the incident.
She displayed a level of grace, dignity and self-control that seem to have permanently deserted polarized Washington. And her sincerity made the idea that she would put herself through such a trial, as part of a partisan plot to discredit Trump's Supreme Court pick, seem absurd.
The most painful moment of her testimony came as she recalled "the laughter, the uproarious laughter" between Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge during the alleged assault as "they were having fun at my expense."
For Ford's supporters it was an image that encapsulated her courage and her credibility and appeared to leave the White House with serious problems in trying to keep the Kavanaugh nomination alive.
For other women who have kept silent over their own suppressed experiences, it was an inspiration.
Kavanaugh explodes
Kavanaugh's answer was to leave the nation's most important TV viewer, back at the White House with no incentive to pull his name.
The judge came out firing, ditching the wooden persona he used on a Fox News interview earlier in the week.
Alternating between tears and fury, he gave an impression of Trump himself, branding the hearing a Democratic hit and a "national disgrace" to avenge the Clintons in the wake of the 2016 election.
In a rant he would surely not tolerate in his courtroom, Kavanaugh yelled at Democrats: "Your coordinated and well-funded effort to destroy my good name and destroy my family will not drive me out."
It was a display that in any tempered consideration of Kavanaugh's qualifications for the high court might raise questions about whether he has the temperament or is too politically motivated to rule on the merits on some of the most polarizing cases in modern America.
And had Ford shouted and fumed in that way that Kavanaugh did, Republicans would have portrayed her as a hysterical, unreliable witness.
But his willingness to stand and fight may have won him a fresh well of support from Trump's grassroots voters and could help restore lost momentum to his confirmation hopes.
It was also a symptom of genuine internal agony from a man who vehemently denies assaulting Ford, or drinking to excess as a teenager to such an extent that he may have blacked out or failed to remember any elements of the alleged assault.
Kavanaugh repeatedly choked up and cried, when he praised the support of his friends or the impact of the controversy on his daughters.
There is no doubt he was fighting for more than his shot at the Supreme Court -- his entire reputation and way of life.
"I love teaching law, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to teach again," he told the Democrats.
"I love coaching more than anything ever done in my whole life, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again."
Republicans decry 'charade'
But the signs were that Kavanaugh's fury might have worked in turning around a day that had begun disastrously for him, with even White House sources confiding that Ford was a credible witness and expressing disquiet about the Senate GOP's handling of the hearing.
"Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting ..." Trump tweeted soon after the marathon hearing ended.
"Democrats' search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!"
Early in the day, it seemed as though Kavanaugh's nomination was in serious trouble.
Then the 11 Republican senators shoved aside the female prosecutor they called upon to cross-examine Ford, but not her alleged attacker, and took over the questioning themselves.
It meant that Ford was treated as if she had done something wrong, while Kavanaugh had the benefit of a fired-up partisan defense.
Sen. Lindsey Graham engineered an outburst that will have caught Trump's eye, after Kavanaugh started floundering under Democratic questioning.
"To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you're legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics," Graham said.
"I hope that the American people will see though this charade. "
Analysis by Stephen Collinson
A searing day when two lives were torn apart on live television left a divided America facing more fundamental questions than whether Brett Kavanaugh should sit on the Supreme Court.
The Senate hearing meant to find the truth about Christine Blasey Ford's accusation that President Donald Trump's nominee assaulted her in the 1980s degenerated into one of the most distasteful political spectacles in many years.
What did or didn't happen at a teenage house party in the Washington, DC, suburbs is now playing out 36 years later in an improbable twist of history. For both the accuser and the accused, it is a personal tragedy.
But it is a national tragedy that the confirmation process has exposed a ruptured political system utterly unable to find consensus over an issue as serious as an alleged sexual assault, even in the #MeToo era.
Instead of showing how far Washington has come in understanding the quintessential challenges of an experience many women know but few talk about, Thursday's showdown showed how far it has to go.
The day began with Ford appearing before the American public for the first time, declaring: "It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court. My responsibility is to tell you the truth."
It ended after an aggressive Kavanaugh warned in a tirade directed at Democrats who backed Ford's allegations, "You sowed the wind, for decades to come. I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind."
If the evidence of Thursday is any guide, where you stand on Ford and her allegations depends on how you vote. Republicans are prone to believe that Democrats have orchestrated or at least exploited claims of misconduct by Kavanaugh. Democrats see the administration's refusal to reopen an FBI background check into the judge as proof that Republicans are rushing the process and trying to hide the truth.
And whatever Kavanaugh's fate, the fight by Republicans to establish a generational conservative majority on the court, and the Democrats' bid to block them, will plunge the nation deeper into the bitter tribalism that has worsened in the age of Trump.
Should Kavanaugh reach the court, millions of women and liberals will see him as the illegitimate product of an immoral confirmation process -- a reality that will impugn the integrity of one of the few bodies in American civic life that has retained some public trust.
If he goes down, his plight will only enrage the conservative base and deepen the determination of partisans to avenge what they see as a Democratic smear campaign, in a way that will further polarize the nation.
And for all the agony of nine hours of emotionally draining testimony, it's not yet clear the politics around Kavanaugh's nomination -- stalled by a flurry of accusations of sexual misconduct -- has changed all that much.
A strong band of Republicans in the Senate want to push on fast -- as soon as Friday with a series of votes that could see Kavanaugh confirmed next week -- in a move that would validate a long-sought dream of the party's conservative base but risk alienating the suburban women who could decide November's midterm elections.
But GOP leaders still cannot be sure that wavering Republicans like Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski and Arizona's Jeff Flake will be on board for a vote in which the GOP can only face one defection if all the Democrats hang together.
Ford '100%' sure
Thursday's hearing echoed another Supreme Court confirmation fight hung up on allegations of improper behavior by a powerful man -- the 1991 process involving Justice Clarence Thomas and his accuser Anita Hill.
Ford, voice quivering, said she was "terrified" to reveal herself before the world but was "100%" sure that Kavanaugh was the teenager who assaulted her in 1982, on an evening she said left her with such acute fears of entrapment that she built two front doors in her house.
Ford held the nation in thrall, as viewers inside the hearing room and outside shed tears. Her descriptions recalled the terror-struck teenager she was at the time of the incident.
She displayed a level of grace, dignity and self-control that seem to have permanently deserted polarized Washington. And her sincerity made the idea that she would put herself through such a trial, as part of a partisan plot to discredit Trump's Supreme Court pick, seem absurd.
The most painful moment of her testimony came as she recalled "the laughter, the uproarious laughter" between Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge during the alleged assault as "they were having fun at my expense."
For Ford's supporters it was an image that encapsulated her courage and her credibility and appeared to leave the White House with serious problems in trying to keep the Kavanaugh nomination alive.
For other women who have kept silent over their own suppressed experiences, it was an inspiration.
Kavanaugh explodes
Kavanaugh's answer was to leave the nation's most important TV viewer, back at the White House with no incentive to pull his name.
The judge came out firing, ditching the wooden persona he used on a Fox News interview earlier in the week.
Alternating between tears and fury, he gave an impression of Trump himself, branding the hearing a Democratic hit and a "national disgrace" to avenge the Clintons in the wake of the 2016 election.
In a rant he would surely not tolerate in his courtroom, Kavanaugh yelled at Democrats: "Your coordinated and well-funded effort to destroy my good name and destroy my family will not drive me out."
It was a display that in any tempered consideration of Kavanaugh's qualifications for the high court might raise questions about whether he has the temperament or is too politically motivated to rule on the merits on some of the most polarizing cases in modern America.
And had Ford shouted and fumed in that way that Kavanaugh did, Republicans would have portrayed her as a hysterical, unreliable witness.
But his willingness to stand and fight may have won him a fresh well of support from Trump's grassroots voters and could help restore lost momentum to his confirmation hopes.
It was also a symptom of genuine internal agony from a man who vehemently denies assaulting Ford, or drinking to excess as a teenager to such an extent that he may have blacked out or failed to remember any elements of the alleged assault.
Kavanaugh repeatedly choked up and cried, when he praised the support of his friends or the impact of the controversy on his daughters.
There is no doubt he was fighting for more than his shot at the Supreme Court -- his entire reputation and way of life.
"I love teaching law, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to teach again," he told the Democrats.
"I love coaching more than anything ever done in my whole life, but thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again."
Republicans decry 'charade'
But the signs were that Kavanaugh's fury might have worked in turning around a day that had begun disastrously for him, with even White House sources confiding that Ford was a credible witness and expressing disquiet about the Senate GOP's handling of the hearing.
"Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him. His testimony was powerful, honest, and riveting ..." Trump tweeted soon after the marathon hearing ended.
"Democrats' search and destroy strategy is disgraceful and this process has been a total sham and effort to delay, obstruct, and resist. The Senate must vote!"
Early in the day, it seemed as though Kavanaugh's nomination was in serious trouble.
Then the 11 Republican senators shoved aside the female prosecutor they called upon to cross-examine Ford, but not her alleged attacker, and took over the questioning themselves.
It meant that Ford was treated as if she had done something wrong, while Kavanaugh had the benefit of a fired-up partisan defense.
Sen. Lindsey Graham engineered an outburst that will have caught Trump's eye, after Kavanaugh started floundering under Democratic questioning.
"To my Republican colleagues, if you vote no, you're legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics," Graham said.
"I hope that the American people will see though this charade. "
Little has changed...
The Brett Kavanaugh hearing showed how little has changed since Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas
The Republicans on the committee attempted to change the optics for this hearing, but don’t be fooled.
By Anna North
At Thursday’s hearing on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was unfailingly polite.
Mitchell, an attorney from Maricopa County, Arizona, with years of experience prosecuting sex crimes, was chosen by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Ford questions on their behalf. She began her questioning by apologizing for the death threats and other trauma Ford had endured after her allegations became public.
“I’m very sorry,” she said, “that’s not right.”
“I know this is stressful,” she added, going on to carefully and respectfully lay out ground rules for the hearing.
It was a far cry from the 1991 hearing on Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas, when male senators spoke to Hill condescendingly and minimized the experiences she reported. Republicans had chosen Mitchell, a longtime prosecutor whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell oddly described on Tuesday as a “female assistant,” to avoid a repeat of 1991: In the #MeToo era, they didn’t want the optics of male senators grilling Ford.
Republicans were likely thinking not just about the future of Kavanaugh’s nomination but also about the midterm elections. The treatment Hill faced in the 1991 hearings stirred up anger among female voters, who helped usher in the “Year of the Woman” in 1992, when a record number of women were elected to Congress. Women are already engaged in politics at a heightened level this year, motivated in part by the rise of Donald Trump, who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Republicans don’t want women this year getting outraged further by the Kavanaugh hearings and taking their anger to the polls a little over a month from now.
Though the tone was different, the substance of Mitchell’s questions was very similar to what Hill faced in 1991. Again, a woman came before the Senate Judiciary Committee and had her memory, her credibility, and her sanity questioned. Again the hearing turned into a referendum on the woman, although she was neither the one accused of sexual misconduct nor the one hoping to ascend to the Supreme Court. Again, the man got the last word.
Ultimately, Mitchell’s presence seemed like an effort to sugarcoat a basic fact: Many senators are no more interested in taking sexual misconduct allegations seriously than their predecessors were in 1991. And when a woman comes forward with such allegations, too often, her words are still given less weight than a man’s. If Thursday’s hearing was a test of the impact of #MeToo, the results are clear: Our country still has a lot of work to do.
Ford was treated more gently than Anita Hill
On a surface level, Ford’s treatment was kinder and gentler than what Hill faced from senators in 1991. The differences were evident from the very beginning. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, told Ford she could take a break whenever she wanted and have anything she needed during the hearing.
And while Mitchell started her portion of the hearing by expressing sympathy for Ford, Sen. Joe Biden, the chair of the judiciary committee in 1991, began his questioning of Hill by getting frustrated with the challenge of seating her family.
“We will try to get a few more chairs, if possible, but we should get this underway,” Biden said as Hill’s family members filed in to support her. “We may, at some point, Professor Hill, attempt to accommodate either your counsel and/or your family members with chairs down the side here. They need not all be up front here.”
“We must get this hearing moving,” he added.
It wasn’t a glaringly disrespectful moment, but it was an odd one, and Biden didn’t go out of his way to accommodate Hill or make her comfortable.
After her opening apology, Mitchell asked a series of detailed questions about various statements Ford had made to the press or in her prepared testimony. Throughout, her tone was respectful and sympathetic. When Ford said the experience of taking a polygraph test had been stressful, Mitchell said, “I understand they can be that way.”
Mitchell’s questions largely seemed aimed at uncovering inconsistencies in Ford’s accounts, not minimizing the substance of her allegations. Contrast that with a now-famous exchange between then-Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Hill, in which Specter asked about Hill’s allegation that Thomas had talked to her about porn films.
“You testified this morning, in response to Senator Biden, that the most embarrassing question involved — this is not too bad — women’s large breasts,” he said. “That is a word we use all the time.”
“It wasn’t just the breasts,” Hill replied to Specter, “it was the continuation of his story about what happened in those films with the people with this characteristic.”
Specter then said, “In your statement to the FBI you did refer to the films, but there is no reference to the physical characteristic you describe. I don’t want to attach too much weight to it, but I had thought you said that the aspect of large breasts was the aspect that concerned you, and that was missing from the statement to the FBI.”
Senators, including Specter, also asked whether she was interested in Thomas sexually. Specter referred to a former colleague of Hill’s who suggested that her allegations “were the result of Ms. Hill’s disappointment and frustration that Mr. Thomas did not show any sexual interest in her.”
Sen. Howell Heflin (D-AL) asked Hill directly, “Are you a scorned woman?”
Of course, time isn’t the only difference between Hill’s hearing and Ford’s. As Hill herself has noted, she might have been treated differently had she been a white woman: “How do you think certain people would have reacted if I had come forward and been white, blond-haired and blue-eyed?” she asked in 2002. Women of color face unique obstacles when speaking up about sexual misconduct, and their reports may be more likely to be dismissed. And while senators must have known the importance of treating Ford sensitively in the #MeToo era, she may also have received a more polite reception than Hill because she is white.
Republicans’ appointment of Mitchell avoided the optics of men asking a woman intimate, insensitive questions about sexual misconduct. And Mitchell herself avoided using the kind of disrespectful language that aroused outrage among many women watching the Hill hearings.
But in substance, Ford’s hearing had the same problems as Hill’s
Mitchell may have spoken kindly to Ford, but the goal of her questions, ultimately, was to cast doubt on Ford’s account of her experiences. At one point, for instance, Mitchell noted that in an interview with the Washington Post, Ford said that her assault by Kavanaugh had contributed to her symptoms of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. “The word contributed, does that mean that there are other things that have happened that have also contributed to anxiety and PTSD?”
“The etiology of anxiety and PTSD is multifactorial,” Ford, a psychology professor, responded, adding that other factors beyond the assault might also have contributed to her symptoms.
“So have there been other things that have contributed to the anxiety and PTSD that you suffered?” Mitchell asked, later pressing Ford on whether any “environmental” factors might have led to her diagnoses.
“Environmental?” Ford asked. “Nothing that I can think of. Certainly nothing as striking as that event.”
The line of questioning seemed designed to call Ford’s overall mental health into question and thus damage her credibility. Compare that to suggestions during the Hill-Thomas hearings that Hill might suffer from “erotomania” or the delusion that Thomas was interested in her.
At one point, Specter quoted the statement of Dean Kothe, who knew Thomas and Hill: “I find the references to the alleged sexual harassment not only unbelievable but preposterous. I am convinced that such are the product of fantasy.”
“Would you care to comment on that?” Specter asked.
“Well, I would only say that I am not given to fantasy,” Hill replied.
Specter was far blunter than Mitchell, but the gist of their questions was the same: Was the woman before them of sound enough mind to know if she’d been the victim of sexual misconduct?
Ultimately, Mitchell’s presence seemed like an attempt to put a kinder face — importantly, a female face — on a process that was fundamentally the same as the one Hill faced in 1991: a public forum where supporters of the man she said had victimized her could poke holes in her story before a national audience.
“You are not on trial,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) told Ford at one point. But, in a fundamental way, she was.
Ford and others had called for an FBI investigation before her testimony so that other witnesses could be interviewed and other evidence examined in a private setting, but that request was denied. And so Ford’s hearing became, like Hill’s, a referendum on her character and credibility rather than a real effort to gather and consider all the facts.
Just like in 1991, a man got the last word
In her negotiations with senators over Thursday’s hearing, Ford had asked to testify after Kavanaugh. She and her legal team were likely aware that Thomas was allowed to speak both before and after Hill, and that his last statement, televised during primetime on a Friday evening, was considered particularly influential on public opinion. But senators denied Ford’s request, and Kavanaugh spoke second, in a tearful, angry statement in which he accused Democrats of replacing “advice and consent with search and destroy.”
And while Republicans allowed Mitchell to speak for them when questioning Ford, some took the microphone themselves to ask questions of Kavanaugh that were really expressions of their own outrage that allegations of sexual assault were threatening to block his path to the Supreme Court.
“This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” said a furious Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“This is not a job interview,” he told, rather than asked, Kavanaugh. “This is hell.”
While Mitchell’s questioning of Ford was relatively staid, what followed — and what those watching the whole process will likely remember — was fiery. Republicans may not have attacked Ford directly, but they made clear that they thought her allegations were false and that Kavanaugh was the real victim.
“I cannot imagine what you and your family have gone through,” Graham said to Kavanaugh. “I hope the American people can see through this sham.”
“In 1991,” Hill wrote in an op-ed last week in the New York Times, “the phrase ‘they just don’t get it’ became a popular way of describing senators’ reaction to sexual violence. With years of hindsight, mounds of evidence of the prevalence and harm that sexual violence causes individuals and our institutions, as well as a Senate with more women than ever, ‘not getting it’ isn’t an option for our elected representatives.”
By calling in Mitchell to ask their questions more sensitively than their predecessors did in 1991, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee showed that when it comes to understanding the optics of a hearing, they do “get it” now. But when it comes to giving a woman’s testimony, her experiences, and her feelings the same weight as a man’s, they don’t get it at all — or they just don’t care.
The Republicans on the committee attempted to change the optics for this hearing, but don’t be fooled.
By Anna North
At Thursday’s hearing on Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was unfailingly polite.
Mitchell, an attorney from Maricopa County, Arizona, with years of experience prosecuting sex crimes, was chosen by Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask Ford questions on their behalf. She began her questioning by apologizing for the death threats and other trauma Ford had endured after her allegations became public.
“I’m very sorry,” she said, “that’s not right.”
“I know this is stressful,” she added, going on to carefully and respectfully lay out ground rules for the hearing.
It was a far cry from the 1991 hearing on Anita Hill’s sexual harassment allegations against Clarence Thomas, when male senators spoke to Hill condescendingly and minimized the experiences she reported. Republicans had chosen Mitchell, a longtime prosecutor whom Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell oddly described on Tuesday as a “female assistant,” to avoid a repeat of 1991: In the #MeToo era, they didn’t want the optics of male senators grilling Ford.
Republicans were likely thinking not just about the future of Kavanaugh’s nomination but also about the midterm elections. The treatment Hill faced in the 1991 hearings stirred up anger among female voters, who helped usher in the “Year of the Woman” in 1992, when a record number of women were elected to Congress. Women are already engaged in politics at a heightened level this year, motivated in part by the rise of Donald Trump, who has himself been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Republicans don’t want women this year getting outraged further by the Kavanaugh hearings and taking their anger to the polls a little over a month from now.
Though the tone was different, the substance of Mitchell’s questions was very similar to what Hill faced in 1991. Again, a woman came before the Senate Judiciary Committee and had her memory, her credibility, and her sanity questioned. Again the hearing turned into a referendum on the woman, although she was neither the one accused of sexual misconduct nor the one hoping to ascend to the Supreme Court. Again, the man got the last word.
Ultimately, Mitchell’s presence seemed like an effort to sugarcoat a basic fact: Many senators are no more interested in taking sexual misconduct allegations seriously than their predecessors were in 1991. And when a woman comes forward with such allegations, too often, her words are still given less weight than a man’s. If Thursday’s hearing was a test of the impact of #MeToo, the results are clear: Our country still has a lot of work to do.
Ford was treated more gently than Anita Hill
On a surface level, Ford’s treatment was kinder and gentler than what Hill faced from senators in 1991. The differences were evident from the very beginning. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the chair of the Judiciary Committee, told Ford she could take a break whenever she wanted and have anything she needed during the hearing.
And while Mitchell started her portion of the hearing by expressing sympathy for Ford, Sen. Joe Biden, the chair of the judiciary committee in 1991, began his questioning of Hill by getting frustrated with the challenge of seating her family.
“We will try to get a few more chairs, if possible, but we should get this underway,” Biden said as Hill’s family members filed in to support her. “We may, at some point, Professor Hill, attempt to accommodate either your counsel and/or your family members with chairs down the side here. They need not all be up front here.”
“We must get this hearing moving,” he added.
It wasn’t a glaringly disrespectful moment, but it was an odd one, and Biden didn’t go out of his way to accommodate Hill or make her comfortable.
After her opening apology, Mitchell asked a series of detailed questions about various statements Ford had made to the press or in her prepared testimony. Throughout, her tone was respectful and sympathetic. When Ford said the experience of taking a polygraph test had been stressful, Mitchell said, “I understand they can be that way.”
Mitchell’s questions largely seemed aimed at uncovering inconsistencies in Ford’s accounts, not minimizing the substance of her allegations. Contrast that with a now-famous exchange between then-Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Hill, in which Specter asked about Hill’s allegation that Thomas had talked to her about porn films.
“You testified this morning, in response to Senator Biden, that the most embarrassing question involved — this is not too bad — women’s large breasts,” he said. “That is a word we use all the time.”
“It wasn’t just the breasts,” Hill replied to Specter, “it was the continuation of his story about what happened in those films with the people with this characteristic.”
Specter then said, “In your statement to the FBI you did refer to the films, but there is no reference to the physical characteristic you describe. I don’t want to attach too much weight to it, but I had thought you said that the aspect of large breasts was the aspect that concerned you, and that was missing from the statement to the FBI.”
Senators, including Specter, also asked whether she was interested in Thomas sexually. Specter referred to a former colleague of Hill’s who suggested that her allegations “were the result of Ms. Hill’s disappointment and frustration that Mr. Thomas did not show any sexual interest in her.”
Sen. Howell Heflin (D-AL) asked Hill directly, “Are you a scorned woman?”
Of course, time isn’t the only difference between Hill’s hearing and Ford’s. As Hill herself has noted, she might have been treated differently had she been a white woman: “How do you think certain people would have reacted if I had come forward and been white, blond-haired and blue-eyed?” she asked in 2002. Women of color face unique obstacles when speaking up about sexual misconduct, and their reports may be more likely to be dismissed. And while senators must have known the importance of treating Ford sensitively in the #MeToo era, she may also have received a more polite reception than Hill because she is white.
Republicans’ appointment of Mitchell avoided the optics of men asking a woman intimate, insensitive questions about sexual misconduct. And Mitchell herself avoided using the kind of disrespectful language that aroused outrage among many women watching the Hill hearings.
But in substance, Ford’s hearing had the same problems as Hill’s
Mitchell may have spoken kindly to Ford, but the goal of her questions, ultimately, was to cast doubt on Ford’s account of her experiences. At one point, for instance, Mitchell noted that in an interview with the Washington Post, Ford said that her assault by Kavanaugh had contributed to her symptoms of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. “The word contributed, does that mean that there are other things that have happened that have also contributed to anxiety and PTSD?”
“The etiology of anxiety and PTSD is multifactorial,” Ford, a psychology professor, responded, adding that other factors beyond the assault might also have contributed to her symptoms.
“So have there been other things that have contributed to the anxiety and PTSD that you suffered?” Mitchell asked, later pressing Ford on whether any “environmental” factors might have led to her diagnoses.
“Environmental?” Ford asked. “Nothing that I can think of. Certainly nothing as striking as that event.”
The line of questioning seemed designed to call Ford’s overall mental health into question and thus damage her credibility. Compare that to suggestions during the Hill-Thomas hearings that Hill might suffer from “erotomania” or the delusion that Thomas was interested in her.
At one point, Specter quoted the statement of Dean Kothe, who knew Thomas and Hill: “I find the references to the alleged sexual harassment not only unbelievable but preposterous. I am convinced that such are the product of fantasy.”
“Would you care to comment on that?” Specter asked.
“Well, I would only say that I am not given to fantasy,” Hill replied.
Specter was far blunter than Mitchell, but the gist of their questions was the same: Was the woman before them of sound enough mind to know if she’d been the victim of sexual misconduct?
Ultimately, Mitchell’s presence seemed like an attempt to put a kinder face — importantly, a female face — on a process that was fundamentally the same as the one Hill faced in 1991: a public forum where supporters of the man she said had victimized her could poke holes in her story before a national audience.
“You are not on trial,” Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) told Ford at one point. But, in a fundamental way, she was.
Ford and others had called for an FBI investigation before her testimony so that other witnesses could be interviewed and other evidence examined in a private setting, but that request was denied. And so Ford’s hearing became, like Hill’s, a referendum on her character and credibility rather than a real effort to gather and consider all the facts.
Just like in 1991, a man got the last word
In her negotiations with senators over Thursday’s hearing, Ford had asked to testify after Kavanaugh. She and her legal team were likely aware that Thomas was allowed to speak both before and after Hill, and that his last statement, televised during primetime on a Friday evening, was considered particularly influential on public opinion. But senators denied Ford’s request, and Kavanaugh spoke second, in a tearful, angry statement in which he accused Democrats of replacing “advice and consent with search and destroy.”
And while Republicans allowed Mitchell to speak for them when questioning Ford, some took the microphone themselves to ask questions of Kavanaugh that were really expressions of their own outrage that allegations of sexual assault were threatening to block his path to the Supreme Court.
“This is the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics,” said a furious Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
“This is not a job interview,” he told, rather than asked, Kavanaugh. “This is hell.”
While Mitchell’s questioning of Ford was relatively staid, what followed — and what those watching the whole process will likely remember — was fiery. Republicans may not have attacked Ford directly, but they made clear that they thought her allegations were false and that Kavanaugh was the real victim.
“I cannot imagine what you and your family have gone through,” Graham said to Kavanaugh. “I hope the American people can see through this sham.”
“In 1991,” Hill wrote in an op-ed last week in the New York Times, “the phrase ‘they just don’t get it’ became a popular way of describing senators’ reaction to sexual violence. With years of hindsight, mounds of evidence of the prevalence and harm that sexual violence causes individuals and our institutions, as well as a Senate with more women than ever, ‘not getting it’ isn’t an option for our elected representatives.”
By calling in Mitchell to ask their questions more sensitively than their predecessors did in 1991, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee showed that when it comes to understanding the optics of a hearing, they do “get it” now. But when it comes to giving a woman’s testimony, her experiences, and her feelings the same weight as a man’s, they don’t get it at all — or they just don’t care.
Made for Fux News..
Brett Kavanaugh’s angry testimony made him sound like a Fox News host
Kavanaugh didn’t need to impress the public at large. He had a much smaller audience in mind.
By Todd VanDerWerff
I didn’t watch all of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, defended himself against accusations of sexual assault brought by Christine Blasey Ford.
But with every moment I saw of Kavanaugh’s angry opening statement, of him shouting at Democratic senators, of his generally loud blast of self-defense, I had a distinct feeling: I know what this is. I’ve seen this on TV.
The impassioned, overly emotional cry of a man who’s not used to being questioned as he’s pushed on something he never even imagined would be used against him? It was an all-too-familiar cadence.
It took me a second to figure out why Kavanaugh sounded so familiar: It was because Fox News — the 24-hour news network I watch more than any other, both because I’m writing something about it and because I find it endlessly fascinating — is a constant dress rehearsal of tomorrow’s talking points today.
So when many of my fellow left-leaning social media participants took Kavanaugh’s loud and angry testimony as a sign that he had let emotion get the better of him — in contrast with the much more restrained Ford — the assumption was that he and the Republican Party had played themselves. And to be clear, I don’t imagine that Kavanaugh’s testimony will play well with the general public, which (polling suggests) is already skeptical of the guy.
But the important thing to remember is that Kavanaugh’s performance wasn’t aimed at me or anybody else who’s not already ensconced in the right-wing bubble. It was for Fox News viewers, and in that regard, it was a home run. Because one of Fox News’s most devoted fans sits in the Oval Office.
The right wing under Donald Trump is an endless stream of inchoate rage at everything imaginable. But Trump didn’t invent that.
Since the allegations against Kavanaugh were made public, I’ve wondered why, if they’re true, he didn’t just admit that he drank heavily in high school and did things he wasn’t proud of, or something similar. Such an admission wouldn’t excuse sexual assault — in my mind, it would actually disqualify him from sitting on the Supreme Court.
But I don’t get to vote on his confirmation, and I find it eminently plausible that if Kavanaugh had owned up and pleaded that it was a long time ago, he easily could have earned just enough votes to get through.
Indeed, we don’t have to look back all that far in history to find an example of a Republican who did just that. The youthful, alcohol-fueled exploits of George W. Bush, America’s 43rd president, didn’t extend to sexual assault allegations (so far as we’ve heard), but they did involve drunk driving and youthful jackassery and so on.
What’s easy to forget, due to Bush’s tendency to not admit mistakes while he was in office, was that much of what propelled him to first the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 2000 was his ability to confess to wrongdoing in his past, beg for forgiveness, and seek redemption. Performative atonement was a big part of Bush’s appeal to evangelical Christians, who have always loved narratives of people who sin and then have their lives turned around by God. (Convicted Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson is a good example of this; he became a big figure in evangelical circles after turning toward Christ while in prison.)
But something has changed in the larger right-wing sphere, and it changed during the eight years of Bush’s presidency. Today, admitting to wrongdoing or even having second thoughts about something is seen as a weakness worth of punishment. And the default posture of many prominent conservative figures — including Trump and Kavanaugh, apparently — is that of a constantly aggrieved piety. They are right; you, no matter how much evidence you have, are wrong, and honestly, how dare you.
Night after night, this dynamic plays out on Fox News, especially on Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity’s respective shows. But there, the hosts control the game by immediately tilting their guests off-balance. You might be brought in to do a segment on some left-leaning issue with the impression that you’ll be defending the progressive position, only to end up talking about some other story entirely, with just a tangential connection to the news, designed to make Carlson or Hannity look like the justifiably angry but ultimately sane voice in the wilderness.
Reality obviously doesn’t play by these rules. But the tone that defines them — a high dudgeon meant to suggest not just righteousness but moral spotlessness — carries throughout almost everything influential Republicans do. It’s the voice Ted Cruz speaks in, though he’s a bit nerdier about it, and it’s absolutely core to Trump’s appeal. He’s so used to having privilege, to being told he’s right, that it never occurs to him when he’s wrong.
Fox News didn’t invent this strategy — it’s been a fixture of right-wing media for half a century, and Fox News’s version of it, specifically, grew out of talk radio — but the network did perfect it, and made it the oxygen that many of America’s Republican politicians and voters breathe. And it’s easy to see why.
It’s intoxicating to live in a world where you’re never wrong, where you don’t have to question the way the world is changing or how you might have to change to fit in. When all you have to do is be outraged at the fact of change itself, well, it’s a lot harder to step outside of your superior status. To do so is to show weakness.
In the case of Kavanaugh, I’m genuinely curious as to how everything will play out. He might have impressed the president with his performance (and Trump insists the Senate must vote on him). But did he impress the handful of shaky Republican senators he needs to win over, figures like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski? I’m just cynical enough to think that, yes, they will vote to confirm him. He performed in the way their constituents — and their president — are used to supporting, and the long-held Republican dream of a lockstep conservative majority on the Supreme Court will be too hard to pass up.
To me, that’s a huge strategic mistake, a misreading of a moment in history when the ways that women have been systematically abused, assaulted, and denied their rights are increasingly being dragged out into the sunlight. But when your base is constantly exposed to the idea that questioning long-established institutions is, in and of itself, an unacceptable overreach by the liberal elites — because after all, they never hear evidence to the contrary — well, maybe they don’t want nuance. Maybe they just want a guy who yells a lot, a guy who “fights,” even if what he’s fighting for is to further entrench a cruel status quo.
Kavanaugh didn’t need to impress the public at large. He had a much smaller audience in mind.
By Todd VanDerWerff
I didn’t watch all of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in which Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s latest nominee for the Supreme Court, defended himself against accusations of sexual assault brought by Christine Blasey Ford.
But with every moment I saw of Kavanaugh’s angry opening statement, of him shouting at Democratic senators, of his generally loud blast of self-defense, I had a distinct feeling: I know what this is. I’ve seen this on TV.
The impassioned, overly emotional cry of a man who’s not used to being questioned as he’s pushed on something he never even imagined would be used against him? It was an all-too-familiar cadence.
It took me a second to figure out why Kavanaugh sounded so familiar: It was because Fox News — the 24-hour news network I watch more than any other, both because I’m writing something about it and because I find it endlessly fascinating — is a constant dress rehearsal of tomorrow’s talking points today.
So when many of my fellow left-leaning social media participants took Kavanaugh’s loud and angry testimony as a sign that he had let emotion get the better of him — in contrast with the much more restrained Ford — the assumption was that he and the Republican Party had played themselves. And to be clear, I don’t imagine that Kavanaugh’s testimony will play well with the general public, which (polling suggests) is already skeptical of the guy.
But the important thing to remember is that Kavanaugh’s performance wasn’t aimed at me or anybody else who’s not already ensconced in the right-wing bubble. It was for Fox News viewers, and in that regard, it was a home run. Because one of Fox News’s most devoted fans sits in the Oval Office.
The right wing under Donald Trump is an endless stream of inchoate rage at everything imaginable. But Trump didn’t invent that.
Since the allegations against Kavanaugh were made public, I’ve wondered why, if they’re true, he didn’t just admit that he drank heavily in high school and did things he wasn’t proud of, or something similar. Such an admission wouldn’t excuse sexual assault — in my mind, it would actually disqualify him from sitting on the Supreme Court.
But I don’t get to vote on his confirmation, and I find it eminently plausible that if Kavanaugh had owned up and pleaded that it was a long time ago, he easily could have earned just enough votes to get through.
Indeed, we don’t have to look back all that far in history to find an example of a Republican who did just that. The youthful, alcohol-fueled exploits of George W. Bush, America’s 43rd president, didn’t extend to sexual assault allegations (so far as we’ve heard), but they did involve drunk driving and youthful jackassery and so on.
What’s easy to forget, due to Bush’s tendency to not admit mistakes while he was in office, was that much of what propelled him to first the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 2000 was his ability to confess to wrongdoing in his past, beg for forgiveness, and seek redemption. Performative atonement was a big part of Bush’s appeal to evangelical Christians, who have always loved narratives of people who sin and then have their lives turned around by God. (Convicted Watergate conspirator Chuck Colson is a good example of this; he became a big figure in evangelical circles after turning toward Christ while in prison.)
But something has changed in the larger right-wing sphere, and it changed during the eight years of Bush’s presidency. Today, admitting to wrongdoing or even having second thoughts about something is seen as a weakness worth of punishment. And the default posture of many prominent conservative figures — including Trump and Kavanaugh, apparently — is that of a constantly aggrieved piety. They are right; you, no matter how much evidence you have, are wrong, and honestly, how dare you.
Night after night, this dynamic plays out on Fox News, especially on Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity’s respective shows. But there, the hosts control the game by immediately tilting their guests off-balance. You might be brought in to do a segment on some left-leaning issue with the impression that you’ll be defending the progressive position, only to end up talking about some other story entirely, with just a tangential connection to the news, designed to make Carlson or Hannity look like the justifiably angry but ultimately sane voice in the wilderness.
Reality obviously doesn’t play by these rules. But the tone that defines them — a high dudgeon meant to suggest not just righteousness but moral spotlessness — carries throughout almost everything influential Republicans do. It’s the voice Ted Cruz speaks in, though he’s a bit nerdier about it, and it’s absolutely core to Trump’s appeal. He’s so used to having privilege, to being told he’s right, that it never occurs to him when he’s wrong.
Fox News didn’t invent this strategy — it’s been a fixture of right-wing media for half a century, and Fox News’s version of it, specifically, grew out of talk radio — but the network did perfect it, and made it the oxygen that many of America’s Republican politicians and voters breathe. And it’s easy to see why.
It’s intoxicating to live in a world where you’re never wrong, where you don’t have to question the way the world is changing or how you might have to change to fit in. When all you have to do is be outraged at the fact of change itself, well, it’s a lot harder to step outside of your superior status. To do so is to show weakness.
In the case of Kavanaugh, I’m genuinely curious as to how everything will play out. He might have impressed the president with his performance (and Trump insists the Senate must vote on him). But did he impress the handful of shaky Republican senators he needs to win over, figures like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski? I’m just cynical enough to think that, yes, they will vote to confirm him. He performed in the way their constituents — and their president — are used to supporting, and the long-held Republican dream of a lockstep conservative majority on the Supreme Court will be too hard to pass up.
To me, that’s a huge strategic mistake, a misreading of a moment in history when the ways that women have been systematically abused, assaulted, and denied their rights are increasingly being dragged out into the sunlight. But when your base is constantly exposed to the idea that questioning long-established institutions is, in and of itself, an unacceptable overreach by the liberal elites — because after all, they never hear evidence to the contrary — well, maybe they don’t want nuance. Maybe they just want a guy who yells a lot, a guy who “fights,” even if what he’s fighting for is to further entrench a cruel status quo.
The Light, the Dark, and the Dusty
This colorful skyscape spans about two full moons across nebula rich starfields along the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy in the royal northern constellation Cepheus. Near the edge of the region's massive molecular cloud some 2,400 light-years away, bright reddish emission region Sharpless (Sh) 155 is below and right of center, also known as the Cave Nebula. About 10 light-years across the cosmic cave's bright walls of gas are ionized by ultraviolet light from the hot young stars around it. Dusty blue reflection nebulae, like vdB 155 at upper left, and dense obscuring clouds of dust also abound on the interstellar canvas. Astronomical explorations have revealed other dramatic signs of star formation, including the bright red fleck of Herbig-Haro (HH) 168. Near top center in the frame, the Herbig-Haro object emission is generated by energetic jets from a newborn star.
Flip a coin...
Kavanaugh Wrapup
KEVIN DRUM
I have no idea how this is all going to work out. Ford’s testimony was very credible. Kavanaugh’s was too in some senses, but it was also obvious that he was lying about certain things. For example, there’s not much question that he was a pretty heavy drinker in his teens. There’s not much question that “boofing” doesn’t refer to farting. There’s not much question that “Renate Alumni” was not an affectionate reference to a girl that everyone liked. There’s also not much question that Kavanaugh’s scorched-earth outrage was, at least to some extent, rehearsed.
At the same time, I don’t think there’s any question that Republicans are really and truly furious about this whole affair. They’ve convinced themselves that the entire affair is some kind of coordinated operation that was planned and executed in minute detail by Democrats and shadowy liberal groups. I’d be happy to suspend disbelief and believe this in, say, a Mission Impossible movie, but not in real life.
At this point, I suspect the only thing that matters is what Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski thought about the hearing. If they believed Kavanaugh, he’ll be our newest Supreme Court justice. If not, he won’t.
KEVIN DRUM
I have no idea how this is all going to work out. Ford’s testimony was very credible. Kavanaugh’s was too in some senses, but it was also obvious that he was lying about certain things. For example, there’s not much question that he was a pretty heavy drinker in his teens. There’s not much question that “boofing” doesn’t refer to farting. There’s not much question that “Renate Alumni” was not an affectionate reference to a girl that everyone liked. There’s also not much question that Kavanaugh’s scorched-earth outrage was, at least to some extent, rehearsed.
At the same time, I don’t think there’s any question that Republicans are really and truly furious about this whole affair. They’ve convinced themselves that the entire affair is some kind of coordinated operation that was planned and executed in minute detail by Democrats and shadowy liberal groups. I’d be happy to suspend disbelief and believe this in, say, a Mission Impossible movie, but not in real life.
At this point, I suspect the only thing that matters is what Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski thought about the hearing. If they believed Kavanaugh, he’ll be our newest Supreme Court justice. If not, he won’t.
Affected Outrage
Going Beyond #MeToo: Brett Kavanaugh’s Affected Outrage, Explained
KEVIN DRUM
Here is Will Bunch on the Brett Kavanaugh affair:
Make no mistake: This was also a kind of cultural Pearl Harbor, a date — September 27, 2018 — which will live in infamy in the culture wars between a deeply entrenched patriarchy and a rising #MeToo movement of women telling their survivor stories of sexual abuse and harassment. That rising ride encouraged Dr. Ford to come forward with her long-repressed reckoning, and her courage in testifying on Thursday seemed to pay the #MeToo movement back with interest.
I think this is true, and I also think it’s something that Republicans simply don’t get. The surprise victory of an open misogynist like Donald Trump has blinded them to the way an awful lot of women have viewed the past couple of years. For their entire lives they’ve quietly put up with routine sexual abuse—and who knows? Maybe that would have continued, Harvey Weinstein or not. But the Weinstein revelations came just a few months after Republicans nominated a man who not only proudly assaults women but was caught admitting it on a videotape that was played to the whole country on national TV. And they voted for him anyway. Republicans just didn’t care.
Depending on how many people were watching the Kavanaugh hearing and how it plays in the press, it might well be the tipping point for #MeToo that Bunch suggests. I hope so. It’s going to be an ugly tipping point, but there was never any way it would be anything else.
But there’s something else about the Kavanaugh hearing that struck me pretty hard, possibly because I’m 60 years old and I’ve watched it unfold.¹ For starters, it didn’t change my mind. Quite the opposite. I think it’s obvious that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth and that Kavanaugh told a lot of lies. This almost certainly means he’s lying about the assault on Ford too. The funny thing is that I’m still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about what really happened. Like a lot of people, I refer to his actions as “attempted rape,” but there’s a pretty good chance that this wasn’t his intent at all. At the time, he may well have thought of it as nothing more than horseplay, just a bit of fun and games with no intention of ever taking it past that. And intent matters. Being an infantile 17-year-old lout is way different than being a 17-year-old rapist.
But when he was first asked about all this, he panicked and denied everything. He didn’t have to: he could have admitted what happened, apologized, confessed that he never had any idea how badly it had scarred Ford, and then explained that he’d tried to make up for it by being especially sensitive in his hiring and treatment of women ever since. I’m pretty sure that this would have cooled things down pretty quickly. But once he denied the incident entirely, he had no choice but to stick to his story. Everything that’s happened since has hinged on that one rash mistake.
And this is what explains his almost comically angry testimony. He knew he was guilty and he also knew he couldn’t admit that he’d lied about it. But the Republican playbook has a page for this. Even before his appearance, there were news reports about the advice Kavanaugh was getting: he needed to be passionate, angry, and vengeful against the Democrats who plainly orchestrated this entire witch hunt. And that’s what he did. Unlike Ford, his performance was highly rehearsed: his emotional tone was rehearsed; his lines were rehearsed (and then repeated ad nauseam); and more than anything, his angry insistence that he was the victim of a vicious liberal frame-up was rehearsed.
This has been the signature of the conservative movement ever since the start of the Gingrich era: a deep-rooted belief that conservatives are regular victims of liberal cabals who are out to destroy them and everything that America stands for. Sex and gender are at the core of much of this, but it goes beyond that, something that Kavanaugh knows very well. After all, he’s been a movement conservative spear carrier for years: author of the Starr Report; pro bono counsel in the Elián González affair; part of the Bush v. Gore legal team; and then staff secretary in the Bush White House. He knows what animates the base and he’s perfectly willing to play the role of aggrieved victim if that’s what’s called for.
And to me, that was the most striking thing about Kavanaugh’s testimony: it was an over-the-top, nonstop grievance festival:
Since my nomination in July, there’s been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation…. When it was needed, this allegation was unleashed and publicly deployed over Dr. Ford’s wishes…. This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit…. pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election….revenge on behalf of the Clintons…. millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.
That was from Kavanaugh’s opening statement. Later, Republicans took his cue and gave speech after speech about the perfidy of Democrats who had planned this entire smear campaign. Lindsey Graham said bitterly that any Republican who voted against Kavanaugh was “legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.” Ted Cruz directly blamed the whole affair on deliberate machinations by Dianne Feinstein: “The ranking member had these allegations on July 30th and for 60 days — that was 60 days ago — the ranking member did not refer it to the FBI for an investigation. The ranking member did not refer it to the full committee for an investigation.” John Cornyn said, “I can’t think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United States Senate since the McCarthy hearings.” Thom Tillis was all about the conspiracy theory from the word go: “I believe you’re the first major target of a new strategy that’s developed here….And maybe one of the best evidence of this is one of the websites — one of the groups that are out there, attacking you and trying to create fodder and all of these red herrings, has already acquired a URL for the next judge that they’re going to attack.”
This sense of endless victimization by liberals didn’t start with Donald Trump, but it’s no surprise that it’s reached his peak during his presidency. He literally rode conservative victimization to the White House and taught Republicans that it was even more powerful than they thought. Now they’re using it as their best chance of persuading a few lone Republican holdouts to vote for Kavanaugh not on the merits, but so that Democrats don’t have the satisfaction of seeing their contemptible plot work.
The problem here is not that Republicans were grandstanding over imagined liberal schemes to destroy anyone and anything in pursuit of their poisonous schemes to crush everything good about America. The problem is that most of it wasn’t grandstanding. They believe this deeply and angrily. And it explains the lengths Republicans are willing to go to these days—even to the appalling extent of accepting a cretin like Donald Trump as a party leader. If you believe that your political opposites aren’t just opponents, but literally enemies of the country, then of course you’ll do almost anything to stop them. I would too if that’s what I thought.
There are some liberals who do think that—and more and more of them since Donald Trump was elected. But it’s still a relatively small part of the progressive movement. In the conservative movement it’s an animating principle. This is why it so desperately needs to be stopped—not by destroying Republicans, but by voting them out of office. We simply can’t afford to have a major party run for the benefit of fearful whites who are dedicated to a scorched-earth belief that liberals are betraying the nation. It has to end, and Republicans themselves are ultimately the only ones who can end it. We need a real conservative party again.
¹Almost.
KEVIN DRUM
Here is Will Bunch on the Brett Kavanaugh affair:
Make no mistake: This was also a kind of cultural Pearl Harbor, a date — September 27, 2018 — which will live in infamy in the culture wars between a deeply entrenched patriarchy and a rising #MeToo movement of women telling their survivor stories of sexual abuse and harassment. That rising ride encouraged Dr. Ford to come forward with her long-repressed reckoning, and her courage in testifying on Thursday seemed to pay the #MeToo movement back with interest.
I think this is true, and I also think it’s something that Republicans simply don’t get. The surprise victory of an open misogynist like Donald Trump has blinded them to the way an awful lot of women have viewed the past couple of years. For their entire lives they’ve quietly put up with routine sexual abuse—and who knows? Maybe that would have continued, Harvey Weinstein or not. But the Weinstein revelations came just a few months after Republicans nominated a man who not only proudly assaults women but was caught admitting it on a videotape that was played to the whole country on national TV. And they voted for him anyway. Republicans just didn’t care.
Depending on how many people were watching the Kavanaugh hearing and how it plays in the press, it might well be the tipping point for #MeToo that Bunch suggests. I hope so. It’s going to be an ugly tipping point, but there was never any way it would be anything else.
But there’s something else about the Kavanaugh hearing that struck me pretty hard, possibly because I’m 60 years old and I’ve watched it unfold.¹ For starters, it didn’t change my mind. Quite the opposite. I think it’s obvious that Christine Blasey Ford was telling the truth and that Kavanaugh told a lot of lies. This almost certainly means he’s lying about the assault on Ford too. The funny thing is that I’m still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt about what really happened. Like a lot of people, I refer to his actions as “attempted rape,” but there’s a pretty good chance that this wasn’t his intent at all. At the time, he may well have thought of it as nothing more than horseplay, just a bit of fun and games with no intention of ever taking it past that. And intent matters. Being an infantile 17-year-old lout is way different than being a 17-year-old rapist.
But when he was first asked about all this, he panicked and denied everything. He didn’t have to: he could have admitted what happened, apologized, confessed that he never had any idea how badly it had scarred Ford, and then explained that he’d tried to make up for it by being especially sensitive in his hiring and treatment of women ever since. I’m pretty sure that this would have cooled things down pretty quickly. But once he denied the incident entirely, he had no choice but to stick to his story. Everything that’s happened since has hinged on that one rash mistake.
And this is what explains his almost comically angry testimony. He knew he was guilty and he also knew he couldn’t admit that he’d lied about it. But the Republican playbook has a page for this. Even before his appearance, there were news reports about the advice Kavanaugh was getting: he needed to be passionate, angry, and vengeful against the Democrats who plainly orchestrated this entire witch hunt. And that’s what he did. Unlike Ford, his performance was highly rehearsed: his emotional tone was rehearsed; his lines were rehearsed (and then repeated ad nauseam); and more than anything, his angry insistence that he was the victim of a vicious liberal frame-up was rehearsed.
This has been the signature of the conservative movement ever since the start of the Gingrich era: a deep-rooted belief that conservatives are regular victims of liberal cabals who are out to destroy them and everything that America stands for. Sex and gender are at the core of much of this, but it goes beyond that, something that Kavanaugh knows very well. After all, he’s been a movement conservative spear carrier for years: author of the Starr Report; pro bono counsel in the Elián González affair; part of the Bush v. Gore legal team; and then staff secretary in the Bush White House. He knows what animates the base and he’s perfectly willing to play the role of aggrieved victim if that’s what’s called for.
And to me, that was the most striking thing about Kavanaugh’s testimony: it was an over-the-top, nonstop grievance festival:
Since my nomination in July, there’s been a frenzy on the left to come up with something, anything to block my confirmation…. When it was needed, this allegation was unleashed and publicly deployed over Dr. Ford’s wishes…. This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit…. pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election….revenge on behalf of the Clintons…. millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.
That was from Kavanaugh’s opening statement. Later, Republicans took his cue and gave speech after speech about the perfidy of Democrats who had planned this entire smear campaign. Lindsey Graham said bitterly that any Republican who voted against Kavanaugh was “legitimizing the most despicable thing I have seen in my time in politics.” Ted Cruz directly blamed the whole affair on deliberate machinations by Dianne Feinstein: “The ranking member had these allegations on July 30th and for 60 days — that was 60 days ago — the ranking member did not refer it to the FBI for an investigation. The ranking member did not refer it to the full committee for an investigation.” John Cornyn said, “I can’t think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United States Senate since the McCarthy hearings.” Thom Tillis was all about the conspiracy theory from the word go: “I believe you’re the first major target of a new strategy that’s developed here….And maybe one of the best evidence of this is one of the websites — one of the groups that are out there, attacking you and trying to create fodder and all of these red herrings, has already acquired a URL for the next judge that they’re going to attack.”
This sense of endless victimization by liberals didn’t start with Donald Trump, but it’s no surprise that it’s reached his peak during his presidency. He literally rode conservative victimization to the White House and taught Republicans that it was even more powerful than they thought. Now they’re using it as their best chance of persuading a few lone Republican holdouts to vote for Kavanaugh not on the merits, but so that Democrats don’t have the satisfaction of seeing their contemptible plot work.
The problem here is not that Republicans were grandstanding over imagined liberal schemes to destroy anyone and anything in pursuit of their poisonous schemes to crush everything good about America. The problem is that most of it wasn’t grandstanding. They believe this deeply and angrily. And it explains the lengths Republicans are willing to go to these days—even to the appalling extent of accepting a cretin like Donald Trump as a party leader. If you believe that your political opposites aren’t just opponents, but literally enemies of the country, then of course you’ll do almost anything to stop them. I would too if that’s what I thought.
There are some liberals who do think that—and more and more of them since Donald Trump was elected. But it’s still a relatively small part of the progressive movement. In the conservative movement it’s an animating principle. This is why it so desperately needs to be stopped—not by destroying Republicans, but by voting them out of office. We simply can’t afford to have a major party run for the benefit of fearful whites who are dedicated to a scorched-earth belief that liberals are betraying the nation. It has to end, and Republicans themselves are ultimately the only ones who can end it. We need a real conservative party again.
¹Almost.
Sexual Assault Survivor Pleads With Jeff Flake
Sexual Assault Survivor Pleads With Jeff Flake to Vote No on Kavanaugh—to No Avail
“Look at me when I’m talking to you! You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter.”
INAE OH
Moments after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)—the key swing vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee—announced that he would vote to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on Friday, a sexual assault survivor tearfully confronted Flake, pleading with Arizona senator to change course.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” the unnamed woman told Flake as he entered an elevator. “You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter. That what happened to me doesn’t matter. And that you’re going to let the people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him.”
She was one of several protesters to approach Flake with gripping exhortations to vote against Kavanaugh.
“You have children in your family, think about them,” another woman told Flake. “I have two children. I cannot imagine that for the next 50 years they will have someone in the Supreme Court who has been accused of violating a young girl. What are you doing, sir?”
Shortly afterward, Flake voted to move forward with a committee vote on Kavanaugh this afternoon.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you! You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter.”
INAE OH
Moments after Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.)—the key swing vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee—announced that he would vote to advance Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court on Friday, a sexual assault survivor tearfully confronted Flake, pleading with Arizona senator to change course.
“Look at me when I’m talking to you!” the unnamed woman told Flake as he entered an elevator. “You’re telling me that my assault doesn’t matter. That what happened to me doesn’t matter. And that you’re going to let the people who do these things into power. That’s what you’re telling me when you vote for him.”
She was one of several protesters to approach Flake with gripping exhortations to vote against Kavanaugh.
“You have children in your family, think about them,” another woman told Flake. “I have two children. I cannot imagine that for the next 50 years they will have someone in the Supreme Court who has been accused of violating a young girl. What are you doing, sir?”
Shortly afterward, Flake voted to move forward with a committee vote on Kavanaugh this afternoon.
Whinny little bitch...
Lindsey Graham Stages Meltdown After Christine Blasey Ford Finishes Testimony
“I feel ambushed.”
INAE OH
Moments after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford finished nearly four hours of testimony detailing her sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday blasted Democrats for “playing a political game” aimed to block the president from nominating someone to the Supreme Court.
The South Carolina Republican even appeared to speak of Ford in belittling terms, describing her as a “nice lady” who was making an “emotional accusation.”
“All I can say is that we’re 40-something days away from the election and their goal—not Ms. Ford’s goal—is to delay this past the midterms so they can win the Senate and never allow Trump to fill the seat,” Graham told reporters. “I believe that now more than ever.”
“Here’s what I’m more convinced of: The friends on the other side set it up to be just the way it is,” he continued. “I feel ambushed.”
Graham also repeatedly questioned certain elements of Ford’s testimony, focusing on her stated fears of flying as a result of the alleged attack and the payment for her lawyers and for the polygraph test she took on her allegations against Kavanaugh.
The highly partisan attacks came as many conservative members of the media openly acknowledged that Ford appeared highly credible and that her testimony was a disaster for Republicans supporting Kavanaugh’s nomination process.
“I feel ambushed.”
INAE OH
Moments after Dr. Christine Blasey Ford finished nearly four hours of testimony detailing her sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday blasted Democrats for “playing a political game” aimed to block the president from nominating someone to the Supreme Court.
The South Carolina Republican even appeared to speak of Ford in belittling terms, describing her as a “nice lady” who was making an “emotional accusation.”
“All I can say is that we’re 40-something days away from the election and their goal—not Ms. Ford’s goal—is to delay this past the midterms so they can win the Senate and never allow Trump to fill the seat,” Graham told reporters. “I believe that now more than ever.”
“Here’s what I’m more convinced of: The friends on the other side set it up to be just the way it is,” he continued. “I feel ambushed.”
Graham also repeatedly questioned certain elements of Ford’s testimony, focusing on her stated fears of flying as a result of the alleged attack and the payment for her lawyers and for the polygraph test she took on her allegations against Kavanaugh.
The highly partisan attacks came as many conservative members of the media openly acknowledged that Ford appeared highly credible and that her testimony was a disaster for Republicans supporting Kavanaugh’s nomination process.
Douchebag.....
Kavanaugh Repeatedly Shouts Down Feinstein in Highly Combative Exchange
Just after the Supreme Court nominee claimed to respect women in his opening remarks.
INAE OH
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh struck a highly combative tone during an exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Thursday, repeatedly talking over the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee as she attempted to question him on the sexual assault allegations that have rocked his nomination.
Kavanaugh appeared to specifically reject Feinstein’s suggestion that he, unlike Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, was not open to an FBI investigation into her allegations. Kavanaugh said he had called for a hearing immediately after Ford’s allegations were made public, but did not directly address the question of an FBI probe.
When pressed on the issue, Kavanaugh grew visibly angry.
“You’re interviewing me, you’re interviewing me,” Kavanaugh interrupted Feinstein at one point. “You’re doing it, senator. I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re doing it.”
Feinstein then brought up Julie Swetnick, the third woman to publicly come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh. He instantly dismissed Swetnick as a “joke,” before tersely declining to discuss her sworn affidavit further.
Just after the Supreme Court nominee claimed to respect women in his opening remarks.
INAE OH
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh struck a highly combative tone during an exchange with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Thursday, repeatedly talking over the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee as she attempted to question him on the sexual assault allegations that have rocked his nomination.
Kavanaugh appeared to specifically reject Feinstein’s suggestion that he, unlike Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, was not open to an FBI investigation into her allegations. Kavanaugh said he had called for a hearing immediately after Ford’s allegations were made public, but did not directly address the question of an FBI probe.
When pressed on the issue, Kavanaugh grew visibly angry.
“You’re interviewing me, you’re interviewing me,” Kavanaugh interrupted Feinstein at one point. “You’re doing it, senator. I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’re doing it.”
Feinstein then brought up Julie Swetnick, the third woman to publicly come forward with allegations against Kavanaugh. He instantly dismissed Swetnick as a “joke,” before tersely declining to discuss her sworn affidavit further.
React to the Kavanaugh Hearing
“Infuriating,” “Devastating,” and “Absolute Madness”—Readers React to the Kavanaugh Hearing
“For many women, this is personal and gut-wrenching.”
KANYAKRIT VONGKIATKAJORN
Thursday’s historic hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Palo Alto University professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, was emotional and contentious: Blasey Ford stood by her claims that Kavanaugh assaulted her in high school, while the nominee continued to categorically deny Blasey Ford’s allegations as well as several others—at moments interrupting several senators and visibly bursting with anger during questioning.
As the hearings progressed, we asked Mother Jones readers how they were responding to the testimonies. Here’s a selection of these responses, lightly edited for length and clarity.
On Blasey Ford’s testimony—and the painful feelings it brought up
“I have not been able to watch any of it at all. My anger and frustration at the entire fiasco is boiling over. I believe the victims. I have worked with survivors of sexual assault and incest, and understand how often they have no voice and live in fear of exactly what has happened to these women. The GOP has no soul. There is absolutely no reason why they couldn’t have chosen to dismiss his nomination and choose someone else who does not have this potential issue hanging over their heads. Instead they are most likely going to ram through his confirmation without having access to all the facts.” — Terry Major-Holliday
“As a survivor of sexual violence, this hearing has been infuriating, devastating, and has me at the edge of my seat. I haven’t looked away, despite the anxiety and memories it has brought up. My biggest concern is the potential for the development of a partisan divide in the way that victims of sexual assault are treated, in and out of the national spotlight.” — Anonymous
“I can’t stand to watch the hearing today. I keep seeing posts and statuses advocating watching and being a sympathetic audience for Dr. Ford, but too much of her story reminds me of my own. The questions being volleyed at her are exactly the ones I feared when I didn’t report my own assault. Looking at social media today has been an emotional minefield—I know better than to read the comments sections of politically charged posts, but I can’t resist. It’s like picking at a scab. I know that what I’ll read will leave a pit in my stomach that will linger for days, but I can’t stop myself. This is what my country thinks of me, and every other woman who has been assaulted.” — Anonymous
“I’m in tears, as I have been off and on for the past week. For many women, this is personal and gut-wrenching. Then to see Kavanaugh display an angry, aggressive, and at times disdainful demeanor after Blasey Ford was thoughtful and circumspect, it brings home how little women are respected and how little progress we’ve made. Who gets to be angry? The perpetrator?” — Cindy
On Kavanaugh’s conduct
“Kavanaugh has conducted himself in a manner that shows he does not have the temperament for a position on the Supreme Court. His angry, defensive and conspiracy ridden accusations are not befitting of such a high position.” — Maryann O’Connell
“It is disarming to see a seasoned litigator act so belligerently and a woman who has been assaulted, act with such class and dignity. If I had any thought that Kavanaugh might have been mistaken for someone else, his rage, out-of-control hissy fit, and his disrespect for the process leaves him ineligible in my mind for a lifetime appointment for the highest court in the land. I am saddened by what has taken place, and irrespective of the fact that Senator Feinstein respected the victim’s wishes, the Republican Party is complicit in the degradation of our democracy. A very sad day for our country. — Rosemary Reichard
“Kavanaugh seems to view himself as a victim. A Supreme Court judge faces many challenges (including personal ones) that would preclude having such thin skin. He has every right to defend himself against accusers. But his behavior today certainly did not seem “judicial”…and such blatant partisanship and blame shifting should certainly be a red flag about how impartial he could be as a judge in our highest court.” — Anonymous
“Judge Kavanaugh is abhorrent, but it’s completely unfair to judge a person on something that happened when he or she was still in high school. People don’t change much, but they do change. Hormones recede. People mature and become humiliated at their behavior as a teenager. As Richard Nixon did, Mr. Kavanaugh has compounded whatever he’s done by denying that he’s done it despite the evidence. The greatest reasons to oppose his nomination are his misreading of the Constitution and his past decisions.” – Anonymous
On the hearing itself
“Very saddened by this spectacle. What has happened to our beloved country? I’m sick of the partisanship. How will anything ever move forward? Please, please let’s stop all the hatred between these parties.” — Anonymous
“Haven’t been able to watch—my thinking is that it should never have gotten this far. Kavanaugh’s record as a judge, his writings and speeches should have already disqualified him. He has shown that he is an ideologue, not somebody who would be fair and impartial. While the present hearings are very important let’s not forget everything else that was already out there.” — John Doucette
“Unfortunately, I did not hear Judge Kavanaugh’s remarks, but judging by the reporting I have read so far, he calls into question his judgment and his integrity. He seems to have taken lessons from Trump. What is also apparent is that many of the threats received by both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and those who sent them are totally outside the realm of acceptable. In fact, they demean both sides. This behavior is not okay.” — L. Minsky
“I feel that now is the time to redefine what “masculinity” is. What I saw during Dr. Ford’s testimony was heartbreaking, but also inspiring and a little bit liberating for my self loathing. The second half of the “show” reminded me of how out of touch we teach men to be in this world, from the moment they enter it. I was too young to understand everything going on during Clarence Thomas’s appointment, but couldn’t believe it then. This is absolute madness.”— Brian
“For many women, this is personal and gut-wrenching.”
KANYAKRIT VONGKIATKAJORN
Thursday’s historic hearing with Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Palo Alto University professor Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, was emotional and contentious: Blasey Ford stood by her claims that Kavanaugh assaulted her in high school, while the nominee continued to categorically deny Blasey Ford’s allegations as well as several others—at moments interrupting several senators and visibly bursting with anger during questioning.
As the hearings progressed, we asked Mother Jones readers how they were responding to the testimonies. Here’s a selection of these responses, lightly edited for length and clarity.
On Blasey Ford’s testimony—and the painful feelings it brought up
“I have not been able to watch any of it at all. My anger and frustration at the entire fiasco is boiling over. I believe the victims. I have worked with survivors of sexual assault and incest, and understand how often they have no voice and live in fear of exactly what has happened to these women. The GOP has no soul. There is absolutely no reason why they couldn’t have chosen to dismiss his nomination and choose someone else who does not have this potential issue hanging over their heads. Instead they are most likely going to ram through his confirmation without having access to all the facts.” — Terry Major-Holliday
“As a survivor of sexual violence, this hearing has been infuriating, devastating, and has me at the edge of my seat. I haven’t looked away, despite the anxiety and memories it has brought up. My biggest concern is the potential for the development of a partisan divide in the way that victims of sexual assault are treated, in and out of the national spotlight.” — Anonymous
“I can’t stand to watch the hearing today. I keep seeing posts and statuses advocating watching and being a sympathetic audience for Dr. Ford, but too much of her story reminds me of my own. The questions being volleyed at her are exactly the ones I feared when I didn’t report my own assault. Looking at social media today has been an emotional minefield—I know better than to read the comments sections of politically charged posts, but I can’t resist. It’s like picking at a scab. I know that what I’ll read will leave a pit in my stomach that will linger for days, but I can’t stop myself. This is what my country thinks of me, and every other woman who has been assaulted.” — Anonymous
“I’m in tears, as I have been off and on for the past week. For many women, this is personal and gut-wrenching. Then to see Kavanaugh display an angry, aggressive, and at times disdainful demeanor after Blasey Ford was thoughtful and circumspect, it brings home how little women are respected and how little progress we’ve made. Who gets to be angry? The perpetrator?” — Cindy
On Kavanaugh’s conduct
“Kavanaugh has conducted himself in a manner that shows he does not have the temperament for a position on the Supreme Court. His angry, defensive and conspiracy ridden accusations are not befitting of such a high position.” — Maryann O’Connell
“It is disarming to see a seasoned litigator act so belligerently and a woman who has been assaulted, act with such class and dignity. If I had any thought that Kavanaugh might have been mistaken for someone else, his rage, out-of-control hissy fit, and his disrespect for the process leaves him ineligible in my mind for a lifetime appointment for the highest court in the land. I am saddened by what has taken place, and irrespective of the fact that Senator Feinstein respected the victim’s wishes, the Republican Party is complicit in the degradation of our democracy. A very sad day for our country. — Rosemary Reichard
“Kavanaugh seems to view himself as a victim. A Supreme Court judge faces many challenges (including personal ones) that would preclude having such thin skin. He has every right to defend himself against accusers. But his behavior today certainly did not seem “judicial”…and such blatant partisanship and blame shifting should certainly be a red flag about how impartial he could be as a judge in our highest court.” — Anonymous
“Judge Kavanaugh is abhorrent, but it’s completely unfair to judge a person on something that happened when he or she was still in high school. People don’t change much, but they do change. Hormones recede. People mature and become humiliated at their behavior as a teenager. As Richard Nixon did, Mr. Kavanaugh has compounded whatever he’s done by denying that he’s done it despite the evidence. The greatest reasons to oppose his nomination are his misreading of the Constitution and his past decisions.” – Anonymous
On the hearing itself
“Very saddened by this spectacle. What has happened to our beloved country? I’m sick of the partisanship. How will anything ever move forward? Please, please let’s stop all the hatred between these parties.” — Anonymous
“Haven’t been able to watch—my thinking is that it should never have gotten this far. Kavanaugh’s record as a judge, his writings and speeches should have already disqualified him. He has shown that he is an ideologue, not somebody who would be fair and impartial. While the present hearings are very important let’s not forget everything else that was already out there.” — John Doucette
“Unfortunately, I did not hear Judge Kavanaugh’s remarks, but judging by the reporting I have read so far, he calls into question his judgment and his integrity. He seems to have taken lessons from Trump. What is also apparent is that many of the threats received by both Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and those who sent them are totally outside the realm of acceptable. In fact, they demean both sides. This behavior is not okay.” — L. Minsky
“I feel that now is the time to redefine what “masculinity” is. What I saw during Dr. Ford’s testimony was heartbreaking, but also inspiring and a little bit liberating for my self loathing. The second half of the “show” reminded me of how out of touch we teach men to be in this world, from the moment they enter it. I was too young to understand everything going on during Clarence Thomas’s appointment, but couldn’t believe it then. This is absolute madness.”— Brian
Bitch..
A Bruising Hearing Casts Doubt on Kavanaugh’s Judicial Temperament
The judge has faced questions about excessive political partisanship for 15 years.
STEPHANIE MENCIMER
When Brett Kavanaugh was first nominated to a seat on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003, Democrats were outraged and expressed concern he was too partisan a figure to take a lifetime appointment on an important federal appellate court. Kavanaugh, at the time the staff secretary for President George W. Bush, had worked in the independent counsel’s office investigating the Whitewater land deal under Ken Starr, and co-authored the famous Starr report about President Bill Clinton’s relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. As part of Starr’s probe of the Clintons, Kavanaugh re-opened the investigation into the death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, and spent millions in taxpayer money to investigate wild conspiracy theories suggesting Foster had been murdered. It took Republicans three years to get Kavanaugh confirmed to the DC Circuit.
After 12 years as a federal judge, Kavanaugh may have finally proven his early critics right. During his testimony Thursday, in which he sought to defend himself against allegations he’d sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when the two were teenagers, Kavanaugh launched into a highly partisan speech that was shockingly political for a Supreme Court nominee. He attacked Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying, “The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment,” and then suggesting the sexual assault allegations against him from three different women were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy.
Almost shouting, he said angrily:
This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars and money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus.
His anger, combined with his political attacks, prompted pundits and lawyers to question whether Kavanaugh’s partisan outburst has demonstrated he lacks the judicial temperament to serve on the federal bench, much less the nation’s highest court, regardless of whether the sexual assault allegations against him are true.
Judicial temperament is an ill-defined term, but it’s one presidents are supposed to consider when appointing judges, as well as Supreme Court justices. The American Bar Association, which evaluates candidates for both the federal bench and the Supreme Court, considers a nominee’s “compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias and commitment to equal justice under the law.” Another legal writer explains, “Judicial temperament, at its best, is a form of restraint that appears as an even-handedness of vision, a thorough-going fairness that eschews anger in favor of reason and clings to respect of all parties as an essential ingredient for the operation of justice.”
Kavanaugh’s performance Thursday comes dangerously close to violating those judicial norms. “The absence of judicial temperament and his unrestrained combativeness toward the Democrats in his opening statement and in his answers to their questions is stunning and entirely counterproductive,” says legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “He showed great disrespect to the Democrats in his answers and failures to answer. He spoke over them. Their questions did not invite any of this.”
Still, Gillers doesn’t think Kavanaugh’s testimony rises to the level of something that might result in a successful ethics complaint against him. “I think context matters,” he says. “This is, at bottom, a political process, and he’s in the middle of it. Strategically, it was a foolish way to proceed, but probably aimed at satisfying the president. But an ethics complaint would go nowhere.” Judicial ethics expert Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University-Bloomington, says Kavanaugh’s partisan attacks aren’t likely to require him to recuse himself from cases on either the Supreme Court or the DC Circuit unless those attacks are directly relevant to parties before him.
But it’s hard to imagine how Kavanaugh ever recovers from the perception he’s a biased political operative. And Geyh notes his confirmation experience is likely to color his attitude toward his judicial work. “It is hard to imagine he would not feel humiliated and embittered by this experience,” he says.
If Kavanaugh is not confirmed to the Supreme Court, either because he withdraws or because he doesn’t get enough votes in the Senate, the confirmation battle could still shape the rest of his career. The history of past failed nominees shows two different courses they can take. President Ronald Reagan nominated Douglas Ginsburg, also a judge on the DC Circuit, to the court in 1987, but was forced to withdraw his name because Ginsburg had smoked pot in his youth and well into his days as an assistant professor at Harvard. Ginsburg returned to the DC Circuit and served as an appellate judge until 2011. But the man who preceded Ginsburg as a nominee, Robert Bork, another DC Circuit judge, was voted down by the Senate after a similarly bruising confirmation battle. After that bitter partisan fight, Bork left the bench altogether and became a staple of the right-wing legal circuit. He spent much of his later career bashing the left in books and speeches.
After Thursday, it’s not hard to imagine Kavanaugh taking the Bork career path if he fails to get confirmed to the Supreme Court. If he does get confirmed, his attitude might not be all that different.
The judge has faced questions about excessive political partisanship for 15 years.
STEPHANIE MENCIMER
When Brett Kavanaugh was first nominated to a seat on the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003, Democrats were outraged and expressed concern he was too partisan a figure to take a lifetime appointment on an important federal appellate court. Kavanaugh, at the time the staff secretary for President George W. Bush, had worked in the independent counsel’s office investigating the Whitewater land deal under Ken Starr, and co-authored the famous Starr report about President Bill Clinton’s relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky. As part of Starr’s probe of the Clintons, Kavanaugh re-opened the investigation into the death of deputy White House counsel Vince Foster, and spent millions in taxpayer money to investigate wild conspiracy theories suggesting Foster had been murdered. It took Republicans three years to get Kavanaugh confirmed to the DC Circuit.
After 12 years as a federal judge, Kavanaugh may have finally proven his early critics right. During his testimony Thursday, in which he sought to defend himself against allegations he’d sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford when the two were teenagers, Kavanaugh launched into a highly partisan speech that was shockingly political for a Supreme Court nominee. He attacked Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, saying, “The behavior of several of the Democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment,” and then suggesting the sexual assault allegations against him from three different women were part of a vast left-wing conspiracy.
Almost shouting, he said angrily:
This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record, revenge on behalf of the Clintons, and millions of dollars and money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus.
His anger, combined with his political attacks, prompted pundits and lawyers to question whether Kavanaugh’s partisan outburst has demonstrated he lacks the judicial temperament to serve on the federal bench, much less the nation’s highest court, regardless of whether the sexual assault allegations against him are true.
Judicial temperament is an ill-defined term, but it’s one presidents are supposed to consider when appointing judges, as well as Supreme Court justices. The American Bar Association, which evaluates candidates for both the federal bench and the Supreme Court, considers a nominee’s “compassion, decisiveness, open-mindedness, courtesy, patience, freedom from bias and commitment to equal justice under the law.” Another legal writer explains, “Judicial temperament, at its best, is a form of restraint that appears as an even-handedness of vision, a thorough-going fairness that eschews anger in favor of reason and clings to respect of all parties as an essential ingredient for the operation of justice.”
Kavanaugh’s performance Thursday comes dangerously close to violating those judicial norms. “The absence of judicial temperament and his unrestrained combativeness toward the Democrats in his opening statement and in his answers to their questions is stunning and entirely counterproductive,” says legal ethics expert Stephen Gillers, a law professor at New York University. “He showed great disrespect to the Democrats in his answers and failures to answer. He spoke over them. Their questions did not invite any of this.”
Still, Gillers doesn’t think Kavanaugh’s testimony rises to the level of something that might result in a successful ethics complaint against him. “I think context matters,” he says. “This is, at bottom, a political process, and he’s in the middle of it. Strategically, it was a foolish way to proceed, but probably aimed at satisfying the president. But an ethics complaint would go nowhere.” Judicial ethics expert Charles Geyh, a law professor at Indiana University-Bloomington, says Kavanaugh’s partisan attacks aren’t likely to require him to recuse himself from cases on either the Supreme Court or the DC Circuit unless those attacks are directly relevant to parties before him.
But it’s hard to imagine how Kavanaugh ever recovers from the perception he’s a biased political operative. And Geyh notes his confirmation experience is likely to color his attitude toward his judicial work. “It is hard to imagine he would not feel humiliated and embittered by this experience,” he says.
If Kavanaugh is not confirmed to the Supreme Court, either because he withdraws or because he doesn’t get enough votes in the Senate, the confirmation battle could still shape the rest of his career. The history of past failed nominees shows two different courses they can take. President Ronald Reagan nominated Douglas Ginsburg, also a judge on the DC Circuit, to the court in 1987, but was forced to withdraw his name because Ginsburg had smoked pot in his youth and well into his days as an assistant professor at Harvard. Ginsburg returned to the DC Circuit and served as an appellate judge until 2011. But the man who preceded Ginsburg as a nominee, Robert Bork, another DC Circuit judge, was voted down by the Senate after a similarly bruising confirmation battle. After that bitter partisan fight, Bork left the bench altogether and became a staple of the right-wing legal circuit. He spent much of his later career bashing the left in books and speeches.
After Thursday, it’s not hard to imagine Kavanaugh taking the Bork career path if he fails to get confirmed to the Supreme Court. If he does get confirmed, his attitude might not be all that different.
End of our world...
Trump administration sees 7-degree rise in global temperatures
Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney
Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century.
A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.
But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet's fate is already sealed.
The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Donald Trump's decision to freeze federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.
"The amazing thing they're saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they're saying they're not going to do anything about it," said Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002.
The document projects that global temperature will rise by nearly 3.5 degrees Celsius above the average temperature between 1986 and 2005 regardless of whether Obama-era tailpipe standards take effect or are frozen for six years, as the Trump administration has proposed. The global average temperature rose more than 0.5 degrees Celsius between 1880, the start of industrialization, and 1986, so the analysis assumes a roughly 4 degree Celsius or 7 degree Fahrenheit increase from preindustrial levels.
The world would have to make deep cuts in carbon emissions to avoid this drastic warming,the analysis states. And that "would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today's levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible."
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
World leaders have pledged to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, and agreed to try to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But the current greenhouse gas cuts pledged under the 2015 Paris climate agreement are not steep enough to meet either goal. Scientists predict a 4 degree Celsius rise by the century's end if countries take no meaningful actions to curb their carbon output.
Trump has vowed to exit the Paris accord and called climate change a hoax. In the past two months, the White House has pushed to dismantle nearly half a dozen major rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, deregulatory moves intended to save companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
If enacted, the administration's proposals would give new life to aging coal plants; allow oil and gas operations to release more methane into the atmosphere; and prevent new curbs on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air-conditioning units. The vehicle rule alone would put 8 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this century, more than a year's worth of total U.S. emissions, according to the government's own analysis.
Administration estimates acknowledge that the policies would release far more greenhouse gas emissions from America's energy and transportation sectors than otherwise would have been allowed.
David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified against Trump's freeze of fuel efficiency standards this week in Fresno, Calif., said his organization is prepared to use the administration's own numbers to challenge their regulatory rollbacks. He noted that the NHTSA document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100.
"I was shocked when I saw it," Pettit said in a phone interview. "These are their numbers. They aren't our numbers."
Conservatives who condemned Obama's climate initiatives as regulatory overreach have defended the Trump administration's approach, calling it a more reasonable course.
Obama's climate policies were costly to industry and yet "mostly symbolic," because they would have made barely a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions, said Heritage Foundation research fellow Nick Loris, adding: "Frivolous is a good way to describe it."
NHTSA commissioned ICF International Inc., a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va., to help prepare the impact statement. An agency spokeswoman said the Environmental Protection Agency "and NHTSA welcome comments on all aspects of the environmental analysis" but declined to provide additional information about the agency's long-term temperature forecast.
Federal agencies typically do not include century-long climate projections in their environmental impact statements. Instead, they tend to assess a regulation's impact during the life of the program - the years a coal plant would run, for example, or the amount of time certain vehicles would be on the road.
Using the no-action scenario "is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics," said MIT Sloan School of Management professor John Sterman. "First, the administration proposes vehicle efficiency policies that would do almost nothing [to fight climate change]. Then [the administration] makes their impact seem even smaller by comparing their proposals to what would happen if the entire world does nothing."
This week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned leaders gathered in New York, "If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change. . . . Our future is at stake."
Federal and independent research - including projections included in last month's analysis of the revised fuel-efficiency standards - echoes that theme. The environmental impact statement cites "evidence of climate-induced changes," such as more frequent droughts, floods, severe storms and heat waves, and estimates that seas could rise nearly three feet globally by 2100 if the world does not decrease its carbon output.
Two articles published in the journal Science since late July - both co-authored by federal scientists - predicted that the global landscape could be transformed "without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions" and declared that soaring temperatures worldwide bore humans' "fingerprint."
"With this administration, it's almost as if this science is happening in another galaxy," said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate and energy program. "That feedback isn't informing the policy."
Administration officials say they take federal scientific findings into account when crafting energy policy - along with their interpretation of the law and President Trump's agenda. The EPA's acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, has been among the Trump officials who have noted that U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants have fallen over time.
But the debate comes after a troubling summer of devastating wildfires, record-breaking heat and a catastrophic hurricane - each of which, federal scientists say, signals a warming world.
Some Democratic elected officials, such as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, said Americans are starting to recognize these events as evidence of climate change. On Feb. 25, Inslee met privately with several Cabinet officials, including then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt, and Western state governors. Inslee accused them of engaging in "morally reprehensible" behavior that threatened his children and grandchildren, according to four meeting participants, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details of the private conversation.
In an interview, Inslee said that the ash from wildfires that covered Washington residents' car hoods this summer, and the acrid smoke that filled their air, has made more voters of both parties grasp the real-world implications of climate change.
"There is anger in my state about the administration's failure to protect us," he said. "When you taste it on your tongue, it's a reality."
Juliet Eilperin, Brady Dennis and Chris Mooney
Last month, deep in a 500-page environmental impact statement, the Trump administration made a startling assumption: On its current course, the planet will warm a disastrous 7 degrees by the end of this century.
A rise of 7 degrees Fahrenheit, or about 4 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels would be catastrophic, according to scientists. Many coral reefs would dissolve in increasingly acidic oceans. Parts of Manhattan and Miami would be underwater without costly coastal defenses. Extreme heat waves would routinely smother large parts of the globe.
But the administration did not offer this dire forecast as part of an argument to combat climate change. Just the opposite: The analysis assumes the planet's fate is already sealed.
The draft statement, issued by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), was written to justify President Donald Trump's decision to freeze federal fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks built after 2020. While the proposal would increase greenhouse gas emissions, the impact statement says, that policy would add just a very small drop to a very big, hot bucket.
"The amazing thing they're saying is human activities are going to lead to this rise of carbon dioxide that is disastrous for the environment and society. And then they're saying they're not going to do anything about it," said Michael MacCracken, who served as a senior scientist at the U.S. Global Change Research Program from 1993 to 2002.
The document projects that global temperature will rise by nearly 3.5 degrees Celsius above the average temperature between 1986 and 2005 regardless of whether Obama-era tailpipe standards take effect or are frozen for six years, as the Trump administration has proposed. The global average temperature rose more than 0.5 degrees Celsius between 1880, the start of industrialization, and 1986, so the analysis assumes a roughly 4 degree Celsius or 7 degree Fahrenheit increase from preindustrial levels.
The world would have to make deep cuts in carbon emissions to avoid this drastic warming,the analysis states. And that "would require substantial increases in technology innovation and adoption compared to today's levels and would require the economy and the vehicle fleet to move away from the use of fossil fuels, which is not currently technologically feasible or economically feasible."
The White House did not respond to requests for comment.
World leaders have pledged to keep the world from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius compared with preindustrial levels, and agreed to try to keep the temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But the current greenhouse gas cuts pledged under the 2015 Paris climate agreement are not steep enough to meet either goal. Scientists predict a 4 degree Celsius rise by the century's end if countries take no meaningful actions to curb their carbon output.
Trump has vowed to exit the Paris accord and called climate change a hoax. In the past two months, the White House has pushed to dismantle nearly half a dozen major rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, deregulatory moves intended to save companies hundreds of millions of dollars.
If enacted, the administration's proposals would give new life to aging coal plants; allow oil and gas operations to release more methane into the atmosphere; and prevent new curbs on greenhouse gases used in refrigerators and air-conditioning units. The vehicle rule alone would put 8 billion additional tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere this century, more than a year's worth of total U.S. emissions, according to the government's own analysis.
Administration estimates acknowledge that the policies would release far more greenhouse gas emissions from America's energy and transportation sectors than otherwise would have been allowed.
David Pettit, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified against Trump's freeze of fuel efficiency standards this week in Fresno, Calif., said his organization is prepared to use the administration's own numbers to challenge their regulatory rollbacks. He noted that the NHTSA document projects that if the world takes no action to curb emissions, current atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide would rise from 410 parts per million to 789 ppm by 2100.
"I was shocked when I saw it," Pettit said in a phone interview. "These are their numbers. They aren't our numbers."
Conservatives who condemned Obama's climate initiatives as regulatory overreach have defended the Trump administration's approach, calling it a more reasonable course.
Obama's climate policies were costly to industry and yet "mostly symbolic," because they would have made barely a dent in global carbon dioxide emissions, said Heritage Foundation research fellow Nick Loris, adding: "Frivolous is a good way to describe it."
NHTSA commissioned ICF International Inc., a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va., to help prepare the impact statement. An agency spokeswoman said the Environmental Protection Agency "and NHTSA welcome comments on all aspects of the environmental analysis" but declined to provide additional information about the agency's long-term temperature forecast.
Federal agencies typically do not include century-long climate projections in their environmental impact statements. Instead, they tend to assess a regulation's impact during the life of the program - the years a coal plant would run, for example, or the amount of time certain vehicles would be on the road.
Using the no-action scenario "is a textbook example of how to lie with statistics," said MIT Sloan School of Management professor John Sterman. "First, the administration proposes vehicle efficiency policies that would do almost nothing [to fight climate change]. Then [the administration] makes their impact seem even smaller by comparing their proposals to what would happen if the entire world does nothing."
This week, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned leaders gathered in New York, "If we do not change course in the next two years, we risk runaway climate change. . . . Our future is at stake."
Federal and independent research - including projections included in last month's analysis of the revised fuel-efficiency standards - echoes that theme. The environmental impact statement cites "evidence of climate-induced changes," such as more frequent droughts, floods, severe storms and heat waves, and estimates that seas could rise nearly three feet globally by 2100 if the world does not decrease its carbon output.
Two articles published in the journal Science since late July - both co-authored by federal scientists - predicted that the global landscape could be transformed "without major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions" and declared that soaring temperatures worldwide bore humans' "fingerprint."
"With this administration, it's almost as if this science is happening in another galaxy," said Rachel Cleetus, policy director and lead economist for the Union of Concerned Scientists' climate and energy program. "That feedback isn't informing the policy."
Administration officials say they take federal scientific findings into account when crafting energy policy - along with their interpretation of the law and President Trump's agenda. The EPA's acting administrator, Andrew Wheeler, has been among the Trump officials who have noted that U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide and other pollutants have fallen over time.
But the debate comes after a troubling summer of devastating wildfires, record-breaking heat and a catastrophic hurricane - each of which, federal scientists say, signals a warming world.
Some Democratic elected officials, such as Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, said Americans are starting to recognize these events as evidence of climate change. On Feb. 25, Inslee met privately with several Cabinet officials, including then-EPA chief Scott Pruitt, and Western state governors. Inslee accused them of engaging in "morally reprehensible" behavior that threatened his children and grandchildren, according to four meeting participants, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details of the private conversation.
In an interview, Inslee said that the ash from wildfires that covered Washington residents' car hoods this summer, and the acrid smoke that filled their air, has made more voters of both parties grasp the real-world implications of climate change.
"There is anger in my state about the administration's failure to protect us," he said. "When you taste it on your tongue, it's a reality."
Tear it apart
The World America Made—and Trump Wants to Unmake
The U.S.-led global order created peace and prosperity for millions. So why are the president’s critics teaming up with him to tear it apart?
By ROBERT KAGAN
The liberal world order is taking a beating these days, and not just at the hands of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. In recent months a bevy of American political scientists from the progressive left to the libertarian right has launched attacks on the very idea of the liberal order, as well as on the conduct of American foreign policy over the past seven decades. These critics argue that the liberal order was a “myth,” a cover for American hegemony and “imperialism.” To the degree there was an order, it was characterized by “coercion, violence, and instability,” and also by hypocrisy. The United States did not always support democracy, but often backed dictatorships, and in the name of shaping a “putatively liberal order,” it often “upended, stretched, or broke liberal rules.” The celebrated achievements of the liberal order, they therefore claim, are either overblown—the “long peace” was due to the Cold War balance of nuclear terror not the American-led order, Graham Allison argues, for instance. Or the order’s benefits are outweighed by its many failures—Vietnam, Iraq, McCarthyism—and by the costs of sustaining it. Indeed, if the liberal order is failing today, they argue, it has been “complicit in its own undoing.” In this, at least, the critics sound much like the president—he, too, believes the liberal order has been a bad deal for Americans.
Trump calls himself a “realist,” and the critics also insist on a new “realism,” a Trumpian pulling back from decades-old alliances that they believe have outlived their usefulness. They might not strike quite the same “America First” themes Trump struck during this week’s address to the U.N. General Assembly. But the realism they have in mind is much the same. They would have us abandon what they regard as the utopian ambitions of remaking the world in America’s image and instead urge us to accept the world “as it is,” to use the Obama administration’s favorite mantra.
But is this, in fact, realism? The founders of this liberal world order during World War II and in the years that followed—people like Franklin Roosevelt, Dean Acheson, George Marshall, and George Kennan—also regarded themselves as realists, and perhaps with greater justification. For they had seen firsthand what a world not shaped by American power, the world “as it is,” really looks like. It was the world of two catastrophic global wars, the Holocaust, man-made famines that killed tens of millions, the rise of fascism and communism and near death of liberalism and democracy in Europe.
The liberal world order American leaders established in the wake of World War II aimed at addressing the causes of those horrors and preventing their return. It was not based on naïve optimism about human existence, but on pessimism born of hard experience, earned on the battlefields of Europe and the beaches of the Pacific islands. While there were many Americans who did want to put their trust in the United Nations and international law—the “rules-based order” we often hear about—these men had a different view. The world was an international jungle, Acheson, Harry Truman’s secretary of state, argued, with no “rules, no umpire, no prizes for good boys.” Nor would there be any escape from this brutal reality: no self-sustaining international balance of power to preserve peace, no self-regulating legal order, no end to international struggle and competition. Such security as was possible, both physical security and the security of liberal ideals, could be preserved only by meeting power with greater power. And in the world as it was configured, the only guarantee of peace, Acheson insisted, was “the continued moral, military and economic power of the United States.” As he would later put it, the United States had to become “the locomotive at the head of mankind.” And the Truman administration put this philosophy into action, deploying troops permanently in Europe, creating the NATO alliance and putting in place the architecture of a relatively free economic system for the world.
The triumph of the liberal world order was not the triumph of ideas alone, therefore. Better ideas don’t win simply because they are better. The order was the product of war and was sustained by the exercise of power in all its forms. What gave the liberal principles a new life and the opportunity to flourish as never before was not the sudden embrace of the Enlightenment but a series of actions in the real world that reshaped the international system and created what Acheson called an “environment of freedom.”
The initial efforts to create this liberal world order preceded the Cold War. And the key pillars on which the order was established had little to do with the Soviet Union. The central element was the transformation of the two great originators of conflict, the autocracies of Germany and Japan, into peaceful, democratic nations. Through force and coercion, but also with financial support and political encouragement, they were led to abandon the geopolitical ambitions that had produced two world wars and adopt instead ambitions for peace, greater prosperity and social welfare. Their large and talented populations gave up the geopolitical competition and entered the competition for economic success. They were in a sense liberated to prosper in peace.
And their neighbors were liberated, too. By denying Germany and Japan a geopolitical and military path, the new order provided an unprecedented level of security in their vitally important regions. The nations of Europe and East Asia, including China, were suddenly able to focus their energies and resources on domestic and economic matters rather than on the strategic concerns that had always consumed them—the fear of an aggressive, powerful neighbor with designs on their territory.
The democratization, pacification and economic resuscitation of Germany and Japan, along with the introduction of American power permanently into the previously conflicted regions of Europe and East Asia, transformed the dynamics of international relations. Within the confines of the new order, normal geopolitical competition all but ceased. The nations of Western Europe and East Asia did not engage in arms races with one another; they did not form strategic alliances against one another; they did not claim strategic or economic spheres of influence; there were no “security dilemmas” driven by mutual apprehension and insecurity; no balance of power was required to preserve the peace among them. Economic competition did not translate into military or geopolitical competition, as it always had in the past.
Within the liberal order there were also no geopolitical and strategic spheres of interest, which had so often been the source of great-power conflicts in the past. This was a conscious American objective. As one State Department memorandum put in July 1945, a return to spheres of interest would be a return to “power politics pure and simple.” America’s objective should be “to remove the causes which make nations feel that such spheres are necessary to build their security.” The one exception, of course, was the United States itself, which as guarantor of the order essentially claimed the whole world as its sphere of interest, and especially once the Cold War emerged.
The success of the order did depend on the United States abiding by some basic rules. Chief among these was that it not exploit the system it dominated to gain lasting economic advantages at the expense of the other powers in the order. It could not treat the economic competition as a zero-sum game that it insisted on always winning. It also meant taking part in imperfect institutions, such as the United Nations, that other nations might value more than American policymakers did. America’s willing involvement helped knit the members of the liberal order into what they could regard as a common international community. This proved to be a key advantage in the Cold War confrontation. A major weakness of the Soviet empire was that important members of the Warsaw Pact were not content with the Soviet order, and as soon as they had a chance to defect, they took it.
This did not mean the United States always played by the rules. When it came to the application of force, in particular, there was a double standard. Whether they admitted it or not, even to themselves, American officials believed the rules-based order occasionally required the exercise of American power in violation of the rules, whether this meant conducting military interventions without U.N. authorization, as in Vietnam and Kosovo, or engaging in covert activities that had no international sanction.
Critics at home and abroad condemned American hypocrisy, just as the critics do today. They questioned the legitimacy of an order that claimed to be rules-based but was often shaped by the American hegemon’s perception of its own interests. During the Vietnam War, millions of Europeans went into the streets to condemn American policy; in the Reagan years millions more protested the deployment of American intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe. In the 1960s, France under postwar leader Charles de Gaulle pulled out of NATO and Germany’s chancellor Willy Brandt pursued an Ostpolitik of rapprochement with East Germany and the Soviet Union that defied American wishes.
Yet for all the shortcomings and despite America’s often high-handed and hypocritical behavior, none of the members of the liberal order—not one—ever sought to leave it. For America’s allies in Europe and Asia and elsewhere, even a flawed American world order was preferable to the alternative, and not just the Soviet alternative but the old European alternative. The Europeans never feared American aggression against them, despite America’s overwhelming military power. They trusted the United States not to exploit its superior power at their expense. Although Americans were selfish, like any people, the Europeans recognized that they were acting on a more complex and expansive definition of self-interest, that the United States was invested in preserving an order that, to work, had to enjoy some degree of voluntary acceptance by its members. Flawed as this system might be—flawed as the Americans were—in the real world this was as good as it was likely to get. The order held together because the other members regarded American hegemony, by any realistic standards, as relatively benign, and superior to the alternatives.
The liberal world order produced extraordinary progress. States and societies within it became more humane in the treatment of their citizens, increasingly respectful of free speech, a free press, and the right to protest and dissent. The poor were better cared for. Rights were continually expanded to hitherto unprotected minorities. Racialism and tribalism were dampened in favor of a growing cosmopolitanism. Extreme forms of nationalism diminished. The liberal world was far from perfect—injustice persisted, along with killing, bigotry and brutality, in the United States and elsewhere. It was still the City of Man and not the City of God. But compared to what had come before over the previous five thousand years, it was a revolutionary transformation of human existence.
There was a self-reinforcing quality to the progress within the order. As liberal norms evolved, all liberal nations came under pressure to live up to them, including the United States. It was not accidental that the greatest advances in American civil rights occurred in the decades after World War II. African Americans had fought and died on European and Pacific battlefields on behalf of ideals their country had yet to realize—and the disjuncture became increasingly untenable.
It is true, as the critics say, that the United States was not a consistent supporter of democracy. Although it actively promoted democracy in Japan, Germany and Western Europe in the early postwar years, and in Eastern Europe and other parts of Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, there were large parts of the world where the United States was indifferent or even hostile to democracy. Because Americans feared radicalism (communism during the Cold War; Islamism today) more than they opposed authoritarianism, they often supported ostensibly reliable dictators and on some occasions either acquiesced in or participated in the overthrow of democratic regimes deemed unreliable—in Chile, for instance, where the CIA either backed or acquiesced in a military coup to oust Marxist leader Salvador Allende.
Yet in the end, and even if not always deliberately or consciously, the United States did shape a world unusually conducive to the spread of democracy. The transformation of the once predatory dictatorships of Japan and Germany into anchors of liberal economic and political order may alone have been the greatest stimulus to the explosion of democracy of the past half century. It made Europe and East Asia, once the world’s cockpits of nationalist confrontations, into zones of relative peace, prosperity and stability, and that in turn reduced one of the greatest obstacles to democracy: insecurity. Nations that are perpetually concerned with defending themselves against attack generally produce strong central governments and often hand extraordinary powers to their leaders. By creating conditions of general security in the decades after World War II, the liberal order provided a cushion for young democracies that might not have survived in a more dangerous world. It mattered, too, that the strongest power in the world was itself a democracy. Those wishing to live under the umbrella of the liberal order’s protection generally sought to conform themselves to its values and mores.
So, yes, the liberal order has been flawed, with its share of failure and hypocrisy. Liberal goals have sometimes been pursued by illiberal means. Power, coercion and violence have played a big part. The order has been the product of American hegemony and it has also served to reinforce that hegemony. But to note these facts is hardly to condemn the order. No order of any kind can exist without some element of hegemony. The Roman order was based on the hegemony of Rome; the British order of the 18th and 19th century was based on the hegemony of the Royal Navy; such order as existed briefly in Europe after the defeat of Napoleon—the so-called Concert of Europe—rested on the collective hegemony of the four victorious great powers. The idea of a peaceful, stable multipolar world where no power or powers enjoy predominance is a dream that exists only in the minds of one-world idealists and international relations theorists.
The same is true of those who would condemn the liberal world order because of the persistence of violence, coercion, hypocrisy, selfishness, stupidity and all the other evils and foibles endemic to human nature. Perhaps in the confines of academia it is possible to imagine a system of international relations where our deeply flawed humanness is removed from the equation. But in the real world, even the best and most moral of international arrangements are going to have their dark, immoral aspects.
The question is, as always, compared to what? Patrick Porter, the author of a widely discussed critique of the liberal world order, acknowledges that “if there was to be a superpower emerging from the rubble of world war in midcentury, we should be grateful it was the United States, given the totalitarian alternatives on offer. Under America’s aegis, there were islands of liberty where prosperous markets and democracies grew.” Indeed, that would seem to be the key point. At any given time there are only so many alternatives, and usually the choice is between the bad and the worse.
Are the alternatives on offer so much better now? Graham Allison, dismissing any return to the “imagined past” when the United States shaped an international liberal order, proposes that we instead make the world “safe for diversity” and accommodate ourselves to “the reality that other countries have contrary views about governance and seek to establish their own international orders governed by their own rules.” Others, such as Peter Beinart, similarly argue that we should accommodate Russian and Chinese demands for their own spheres of interest, even if that entails the sacrifice of sovereign peoples such as Ukrainians and Taiwanese. This wonderfully diverse world would presumably be run partly by Xi Jinping, partly by Vladimir Putin, and partly, too, by the Ayatollah Khamenei and by Kim Jong Un, who would also like to establish orders governed by their own rules. We have not enjoyed such diversity since the world was run partly by Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.
The idea that this is the solution to our problems is laughable. Porter points out American policy has led to “multiplying foreign conflicts” and put the United States “on a collision course with rivals.” Setting aside the fact that multiplying foreign conflicts and collisions between rivals is the natural state of international relations in any era, it is hard for any student of history to imagine that these problems would lessen if only we returned to the competitive multipolar world of the 19th and early 20th centuries. To suggest that there could be a world with no collisions and no foreign conflicts, if only the United States would pursue an intelligent policy, is they very opposite of realism.
Strikingly absent from all these critiques of the liberal world order, too, is any suggestion of an alternative approach. The critiques end with lists of questions that need to be answered. Allison calls for a “surge of strategic thinking.” Others call for “new thinking” about “difficult trade-offs.” Some critics even complain that so long as people continue to talk about a U.S.-dominated liberal order, it will be “impossible for us to construct a reasonable alternative for the future.”
The most the critiques will offer are suggestions that sound more like attitudes than policies. They throw around words like “realism,” “restraint” and “retrenchment.” Allison proposes that the United States “limit its efforts to ensuring sufficient order abroad.” Beinart comes closest to offering an alternative, but he clearly has not yet thought it through fully. He wants to grant other powers their spheres of interest, for instance, but he mentions only Russia and China. Does this mean Russia should be granted full sway in, say, Ukraine, the Balkans, the Baltics and the Caucuses? Should China be able to impose its will on the Philippines and Vietnam?
And what of the other great powers? Does Japan get its own sphere of interest? Does India? Do Germany, France, and Britain? They all had their spheres a century ago, and of course it was the clashes over those inevitably overlapping spheres that led to all the great wars. Is Beinart suggesting we should return to that past?
Of course, we may be moving toward that world anyway. That is the implication of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy philosophy, his attacks on “globalism” and his recent suggestion that all nations look out strictly for themselves. Trump’s speech at the U.N. was an invitation to global anarchy, a struggle of all against all. His boasting about American power put the world on notice that the United States was turning from supporter of a liberal order to rogue superpower. This breakdown may be our future, but it seems odd to choose that course as a deliberate strategy, as Allison and others seem to do. Little wonder that they don’t wish to spell out the details of their alternative but prefer to carp at the inevitable failures and imperfections of the liberal world we have. As John Hay once remarked, “Our good friends are wiser when they abuse us for what we do, than when they try to say what ought to be done.”
No honest person would deny that the liberal world order has been flawed and will continue to be flawed in the future. The League of Nations was also flawed, as was Wilson’s vision of collective security. Yet the world would have been better had the United States joined in upholding it, given the genuine alternative. The enduring truth about the liberal world order is that, like Churchill’s comment about democracy, it is the worst system—except for all the others.
The U.S.-led global order created peace and prosperity for millions. So why are the president’s critics teaming up with him to tear it apart?
By ROBERT KAGAN
The liberal world order is taking a beating these days, and not just at the hands of Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. In recent months a bevy of American political scientists from the progressive left to the libertarian right has launched attacks on the very idea of the liberal order, as well as on the conduct of American foreign policy over the past seven decades. These critics argue that the liberal order was a “myth,” a cover for American hegemony and “imperialism.” To the degree there was an order, it was characterized by “coercion, violence, and instability,” and also by hypocrisy. The United States did not always support democracy, but often backed dictatorships, and in the name of shaping a “putatively liberal order,” it often “upended, stretched, or broke liberal rules.” The celebrated achievements of the liberal order, they therefore claim, are either overblown—the “long peace” was due to the Cold War balance of nuclear terror not the American-led order, Graham Allison argues, for instance. Or the order’s benefits are outweighed by its many failures—Vietnam, Iraq, McCarthyism—and by the costs of sustaining it. Indeed, if the liberal order is failing today, they argue, it has been “complicit in its own undoing.” In this, at least, the critics sound much like the president—he, too, believes the liberal order has been a bad deal for Americans.
Trump calls himself a “realist,” and the critics also insist on a new “realism,” a Trumpian pulling back from decades-old alliances that they believe have outlived their usefulness. They might not strike quite the same “America First” themes Trump struck during this week’s address to the U.N. General Assembly. But the realism they have in mind is much the same. They would have us abandon what they regard as the utopian ambitions of remaking the world in America’s image and instead urge us to accept the world “as it is,” to use the Obama administration’s favorite mantra.
But is this, in fact, realism? The founders of this liberal world order during World War II and in the years that followed—people like Franklin Roosevelt, Dean Acheson, George Marshall, and George Kennan—also regarded themselves as realists, and perhaps with greater justification. For they had seen firsthand what a world not shaped by American power, the world “as it is,” really looks like. It was the world of two catastrophic global wars, the Holocaust, man-made famines that killed tens of millions, the rise of fascism and communism and near death of liberalism and democracy in Europe.
The liberal world order American leaders established in the wake of World War II aimed at addressing the causes of those horrors and preventing their return. It was not based on naïve optimism about human existence, but on pessimism born of hard experience, earned on the battlefields of Europe and the beaches of the Pacific islands. While there were many Americans who did want to put their trust in the United Nations and international law—the “rules-based order” we often hear about—these men had a different view. The world was an international jungle, Acheson, Harry Truman’s secretary of state, argued, with no “rules, no umpire, no prizes for good boys.” Nor would there be any escape from this brutal reality: no self-sustaining international balance of power to preserve peace, no self-regulating legal order, no end to international struggle and competition. Such security as was possible, both physical security and the security of liberal ideals, could be preserved only by meeting power with greater power. And in the world as it was configured, the only guarantee of peace, Acheson insisted, was “the continued moral, military and economic power of the United States.” As he would later put it, the United States had to become “the locomotive at the head of mankind.” And the Truman administration put this philosophy into action, deploying troops permanently in Europe, creating the NATO alliance and putting in place the architecture of a relatively free economic system for the world.
The triumph of the liberal world order was not the triumph of ideas alone, therefore. Better ideas don’t win simply because they are better. The order was the product of war and was sustained by the exercise of power in all its forms. What gave the liberal principles a new life and the opportunity to flourish as never before was not the sudden embrace of the Enlightenment but a series of actions in the real world that reshaped the international system and created what Acheson called an “environment of freedom.”
The initial efforts to create this liberal world order preceded the Cold War. And the key pillars on which the order was established had little to do with the Soviet Union. The central element was the transformation of the two great originators of conflict, the autocracies of Germany and Japan, into peaceful, democratic nations. Through force and coercion, but also with financial support and political encouragement, they were led to abandon the geopolitical ambitions that had produced two world wars and adopt instead ambitions for peace, greater prosperity and social welfare. Their large and talented populations gave up the geopolitical competition and entered the competition for economic success. They were in a sense liberated to prosper in peace.
And their neighbors were liberated, too. By denying Germany and Japan a geopolitical and military path, the new order provided an unprecedented level of security in their vitally important regions. The nations of Europe and East Asia, including China, were suddenly able to focus their energies and resources on domestic and economic matters rather than on the strategic concerns that had always consumed them—the fear of an aggressive, powerful neighbor with designs on their territory.
The democratization, pacification and economic resuscitation of Germany and Japan, along with the introduction of American power permanently into the previously conflicted regions of Europe and East Asia, transformed the dynamics of international relations. Within the confines of the new order, normal geopolitical competition all but ceased. The nations of Western Europe and East Asia did not engage in arms races with one another; they did not form strategic alliances against one another; they did not claim strategic or economic spheres of influence; there were no “security dilemmas” driven by mutual apprehension and insecurity; no balance of power was required to preserve the peace among them. Economic competition did not translate into military or geopolitical competition, as it always had in the past.
Within the liberal order there were also no geopolitical and strategic spheres of interest, which had so often been the source of great-power conflicts in the past. This was a conscious American objective. As one State Department memorandum put in July 1945, a return to spheres of interest would be a return to “power politics pure and simple.” America’s objective should be “to remove the causes which make nations feel that such spheres are necessary to build their security.” The one exception, of course, was the United States itself, which as guarantor of the order essentially claimed the whole world as its sphere of interest, and especially once the Cold War emerged.
The success of the order did depend on the United States abiding by some basic rules. Chief among these was that it not exploit the system it dominated to gain lasting economic advantages at the expense of the other powers in the order. It could not treat the economic competition as a zero-sum game that it insisted on always winning. It also meant taking part in imperfect institutions, such as the United Nations, that other nations might value more than American policymakers did. America’s willing involvement helped knit the members of the liberal order into what they could regard as a common international community. This proved to be a key advantage in the Cold War confrontation. A major weakness of the Soviet empire was that important members of the Warsaw Pact were not content with the Soviet order, and as soon as they had a chance to defect, they took it.
This did not mean the United States always played by the rules. When it came to the application of force, in particular, there was a double standard. Whether they admitted it or not, even to themselves, American officials believed the rules-based order occasionally required the exercise of American power in violation of the rules, whether this meant conducting military interventions without U.N. authorization, as in Vietnam and Kosovo, or engaging in covert activities that had no international sanction.
Critics at home and abroad condemned American hypocrisy, just as the critics do today. They questioned the legitimacy of an order that claimed to be rules-based but was often shaped by the American hegemon’s perception of its own interests. During the Vietnam War, millions of Europeans went into the streets to condemn American policy; in the Reagan years millions more protested the deployment of American intermediate range nuclear missiles in Europe. In the 1960s, France under postwar leader Charles de Gaulle pulled out of NATO and Germany’s chancellor Willy Brandt pursued an Ostpolitik of rapprochement with East Germany and the Soviet Union that defied American wishes.
Yet for all the shortcomings and despite America’s often high-handed and hypocritical behavior, none of the members of the liberal order—not one—ever sought to leave it. For America’s allies in Europe and Asia and elsewhere, even a flawed American world order was preferable to the alternative, and not just the Soviet alternative but the old European alternative. The Europeans never feared American aggression against them, despite America’s overwhelming military power. They trusted the United States not to exploit its superior power at their expense. Although Americans were selfish, like any people, the Europeans recognized that they were acting on a more complex and expansive definition of self-interest, that the United States was invested in preserving an order that, to work, had to enjoy some degree of voluntary acceptance by its members. Flawed as this system might be—flawed as the Americans were—in the real world this was as good as it was likely to get. The order held together because the other members regarded American hegemony, by any realistic standards, as relatively benign, and superior to the alternatives.
The liberal world order produced extraordinary progress. States and societies within it became more humane in the treatment of their citizens, increasingly respectful of free speech, a free press, and the right to protest and dissent. The poor were better cared for. Rights were continually expanded to hitherto unprotected minorities. Racialism and tribalism were dampened in favor of a growing cosmopolitanism. Extreme forms of nationalism diminished. The liberal world was far from perfect—injustice persisted, along with killing, bigotry and brutality, in the United States and elsewhere. It was still the City of Man and not the City of God. But compared to what had come before over the previous five thousand years, it was a revolutionary transformation of human existence.
There was a self-reinforcing quality to the progress within the order. As liberal norms evolved, all liberal nations came under pressure to live up to them, including the United States. It was not accidental that the greatest advances in American civil rights occurred in the decades after World War II. African Americans had fought and died on European and Pacific battlefields on behalf of ideals their country had yet to realize—and the disjuncture became increasingly untenable.
It is true, as the critics say, that the United States was not a consistent supporter of democracy. Although it actively promoted democracy in Japan, Germany and Western Europe in the early postwar years, and in Eastern Europe and other parts of Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, there were large parts of the world where the United States was indifferent or even hostile to democracy. Because Americans feared radicalism (communism during the Cold War; Islamism today) more than they opposed authoritarianism, they often supported ostensibly reliable dictators and on some occasions either acquiesced in or participated in the overthrow of democratic regimes deemed unreliable—in Chile, for instance, where the CIA either backed or acquiesced in a military coup to oust Marxist leader Salvador Allende.
Yet in the end, and even if not always deliberately or consciously, the United States did shape a world unusually conducive to the spread of democracy. The transformation of the once predatory dictatorships of Japan and Germany into anchors of liberal economic and political order may alone have been the greatest stimulus to the explosion of democracy of the past half century. It made Europe and East Asia, once the world’s cockpits of nationalist confrontations, into zones of relative peace, prosperity and stability, and that in turn reduced one of the greatest obstacles to democracy: insecurity. Nations that are perpetually concerned with defending themselves against attack generally produce strong central governments and often hand extraordinary powers to their leaders. By creating conditions of general security in the decades after World War II, the liberal order provided a cushion for young democracies that might not have survived in a more dangerous world. It mattered, too, that the strongest power in the world was itself a democracy. Those wishing to live under the umbrella of the liberal order’s protection generally sought to conform themselves to its values and mores.
So, yes, the liberal order has been flawed, with its share of failure and hypocrisy. Liberal goals have sometimes been pursued by illiberal means. Power, coercion and violence have played a big part. The order has been the product of American hegemony and it has also served to reinforce that hegemony. But to note these facts is hardly to condemn the order. No order of any kind can exist without some element of hegemony. The Roman order was based on the hegemony of Rome; the British order of the 18th and 19th century was based on the hegemony of the Royal Navy; such order as existed briefly in Europe after the defeat of Napoleon—the so-called Concert of Europe—rested on the collective hegemony of the four victorious great powers. The idea of a peaceful, stable multipolar world where no power or powers enjoy predominance is a dream that exists only in the minds of one-world idealists and international relations theorists.
The same is true of those who would condemn the liberal world order because of the persistence of violence, coercion, hypocrisy, selfishness, stupidity and all the other evils and foibles endemic to human nature. Perhaps in the confines of academia it is possible to imagine a system of international relations where our deeply flawed humanness is removed from the equation. But in the real world, even the best and most moral of international arrangements are going to have their dark, immoral aspects.
The question is, as always, compared to what? Patrick Porter, the author of a widely discussed critique of the liberal world order, acknowledges that “if there was to be a superpower emerging from the rubble of world war in midcentury, we should be grateful it was the United States, given the totalitarian alternatives on offer. Under America’s aegis, there were islands of liberty where prosperous markets and democracies grew.” Indeed, that would seem to be the key point. At any given time there are only so many alternatives, and usually the choice is between the bad and the worse.
Are the alternatives on offer so much better now? Graham Allison, dismissing any return to the “imagined past” when the United States shaped an international liberal order, proposes that we instead make the world “safe for diversity” and accommodate ourselves to “the reality that other countries have contrary views about governance and seek to establish their own international orders governed by their own rules.” Others, such as Peter Beinart, similarly argue that we should accommodate Russian and Chinese demands for their own spheres of interest, even if that entails the sacrifice of sovereign peoples such as Ukrainians and Taiwanese. This wonderfully diverse world would presumably be run partly by Xi Jinping, partly by Vladimir Putin, and partly, too, by the Ayatollah Khamenei and by Kim Jong Un, who would also like to establish orders governed by their own rules. We have not enjoyed such diversity since the world was run partly by Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.
The idea that this is the solution to our problems is laughable. Porter points out American policy has led to “multiplying foreign conflicts” and put the United States “on a collision course with rivals.” Setting aside the fact that multiplying foreign conflicts and collisions between rivals is the natural state of international relations in any era, it is hard for any student of history to imagine that these problems would lessen if only we returned to the competitive multipolar world of the 19th and early 20th centuries. To suggest that there could be a world with no collisions and no foreign conflicts, if only the United States would pursue an intelligent policy, is they very opposite of realism.
Strikingly absent from all these critiques of the liberal world order, too, is any suggestion of an alternative approach. The critiques end with lists of questions that need to be answered. Allison calls for a “surge of strategic thinking.” Others call for “new thinking” about “difficult trade-offs.” Some critics even complain that so long as people continue to talk about a U.S.-dominated liberal order, it will be “impossible for us to construct a reasonable alternative for the future.”
The most the critiques will offer are suggestions that sound more like attitudes than policies. They throw around words like “realism,” “restraint” and “retrenchment.” Allison proposes that the United States “limit its efforts to ensuring sufficient order abroad.” Beinart comes closest to offering an alternative, but he clearly has not yet thought it through fully. He wants to grant other powers their spheres of interest, for instance, but he mentions only Russia and China. Does this mean Russia should be granted full sway in, say, Ukraine, the Balkans, the Baltics and the Caucuses? Should China be able to impose its will on the Philippines and Vietnam?
And what of the other great powers? Does Japan get its own sphere of interest? Does India? Do Germany, France, and Britain? They all had their spheres a century ago, and of course it was the clashes over those inevitably overlapping spheres that led to all the great wars. Is Beinart suggesting we should return to that past?
Of course, we may be moving toward that world anyway. That is the implication of Trump’s “America First” foreign policy philosophy, his attacks on “globalism” and his recent suggestion that all nations look out strictly for themselves. Trump’s speech at the U.N. was an invitation to global anarchy, a struggle of all against all. His boasting about American power put the world on notice that the United States was turning from supporter of a liberal order to rogue superpower. This breakdown may be our future, but it seems odd to choose that course as a deliberate strategy, as Allison and others seem to do. Little wonder that they don’t wish to spell out the details of their alternative but prefer to carp at the inevitable failures and imperfections of the liberal world we have. As John Hay once remarked, “Our good friends are wiser when they abuse us for what we do, than when they try to say what ought to be done.”
No honest person would deny that the liberal world order has been flawed and will continue to be flawed in the future. The League of Nations was also flawed, as was Wilson’s vision of collective security. Yet the world would have been better had the United States joined in upholding it, given the genuine alternative. The enduring truth about the liberal world order is that, like Churchill’s comment about democracy, it is the worst system—except for all the others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)