Uncorroborated
One of Kavanaugh’s lies that I find peculiarly exasperating, especially from a lawyer:
BRETT KAVANAUGH: Dr. Ford’s allegation is not merely uncorroborated. It is refuted by the very people she says were there, including by a longtime friend of hers – refuted.
But that’s bullshit and any lawyer would know that.
Most simply and obviously it’s bullshit because the people he’s talking about didn’t even say that, they said only what is reasonable: that they don’t remember it. How would they remember it? They weren’t there, remember? They were in the house but they were not in the room. They were downstairs in the living room, while the assault Ford describes happened upstairs in a bedroom with the door closed. Ford tried to scream but Kavanaugh stifled her mouth so hard she had trouble breathing and was afraid she would die. The music in the bedroom was turned up. When she escaped Ford locked herself in the bathroom until Kavanaugh and Judge careened, laughing, back downstairs, and then she left the house. She didn’t pause to tell everyone present what had just happened; she didn’t tell anyone. So the people there were not in a position to remember the assault that they never knew about in the first place.
Almost as obvious is the fact that saying you don’t remember a thing is not the same as refuting that thing. Not at all, and it’s a crucial distinction, and no lawyer could possibly not know that. No rational adult human should be unaware of that.
Less obvious is that it would be hard for anyone involved to refute Ford’s allegation in any case. Dispute, yes, reject, yes, but refute – that’s a higher burden. It’s hard for her to establish it, because it was so long ago and because she’s unsure about date and place, and it’s hard to refute for the same and related reasons. It would need an exact time and place and irrefutable evidence that Kavanaugh was somewhere else at that time.
And he’s a lawyer. He knows it’s bullshit to say her friends refuted her allegations because they said they don’t remember – but he also knows people are sloppy about these distinctions and he can probably get away with it. The truth is that uncorroborated is what it is, and refuted is not.
And he’ll probably be on the Supreme Court soon.
I remember reading somewhere many years ago that to a lawyer the truth is whatever the jury can be made to believe.
Well at most that would be only trial lawyers, and there are other kinds.
Also it cuts both ways. Motivation to win=alertness to mistakes by the opponent.
You’re right, of course, on both points, but regarding the alertness, with all the focus on the Kavanaugh circus the distraction has allowed Trump’s administration to slip a couple of initiatives under the radar. First off, they’ve officially accepted that global warming is a serious issue (yay!) but it’s too late to do anything so sod the restrictions on fuel economy abd SUVs for everyone (not yay!).
The follow-up is the setting up of a literal tent-city in the desert at Tornillo, Texas, where they’re merrily shipping in the children of detained illegal immigrants – those they haven’t already lost – from foster homes and shelters countrywide, and doing so at night to avoid too much attention. Sounds idyllic!
Because why waste money on educating them? They’ll only be upset once they’re back over the border and the schooling ends. Anyway, teach the little buggers and when they come over again, they’ll think they’re too good to be working on American farms for next-to-nothing. As for legal services, where’s the sense in the government paying one set of lawyers to kick ’em out, and another set trying to keep ’em in?” They’ve got their friends’ tax cuts to pay for, y’know!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/02/trump-administration-planet-boil-refugee-camps
AoS – the entire Trump circus appears to be cover for all the nasty things the Republicans are doing. Trump is perfect cover. A clown. Now he nominates Kavanaugh, who takes the circus to a new height, provides a tightrope walking clown to divert from still other nastinesses. We (meaning not me, not you, but all the Trump voters) voted for entertainment, so now we will be destroyed by the pickpockets and other cutthroats while the clowns cavort.
iknklast, on the subject of Trump as cover, I was watching the latest Real Time with Bill Maher and his opening interviewee was Steve Bannon. During that interview Bannon was claiming – without succeeding, I’m pleased to add – that Trump is a smart operator and that his public persona is largely an act. But he said one thing that does ring true, that pretty much every day Trump throws out a flash genade which allows him and his administration to get things done while the media and the rest are still blinded by the flash.