What Democracy looks like [uncut]

UNCUT VIDEO (CNN)

You've probably seen a clip of this: Senator Jeff Flake being confronted yesterday on an elevator by two survivors of sexual assault. The confrontation happened minutes after Flake's press release that he'd vote "Yes" to move Brett Kavanaugh's appointment out of committee to a full Senate vote.  Flake had just left his office, and was on his way to the committee vote when he was stopped by the women who had been waiting for him in the hall.  Both, survivors of sexual assault, were reeling from Flake's just-announced decision to support the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. 

CNN captured the entire episode-  just under 5 minutes- not the 30-second clips being played in rotation on other cable and network news media. Watch it, people.  This is what Democracy looks like. Speaking truth to power, fearless, demanding the powerful look the powerless "in the eye," and speaking an uncomfortable truth: "You don't care about people like me."

GA was moved by their courage. 

Now, Senator Flake has denied that this elevator confrontation had anything to do with his change of heart: warning his Republican colleagues that he would vote "no" if Kavanaugh's nomination moved to the Senate without re-opening the F.B.I. investigation.  GA thinks Flake's expression and demeanor during this 5 minute episode, and throughout the Senate hearing tell a different story. 

Whatever, millions of American women exhaled at Flake's 11th hour bipartisan deference to due process.  GA sure did.

So the FBI investigation is presumably off and running; Beat the Clock: with one week to finish.   

A former senior FBI investigator interviewed on MSNBC described the process he believes has already begun in F.B.I. field offices across the country. Like Kavanaugh truthfully testified: the F.B.I. investigation will not draw conclusions. That's not what they do.  They will assess the veracity of information provided in sworn testimony and affidavits, based upon objective fact-finding.  They will seek to corroborate testimony of both, through interview of witnesses and feet-on-the ground investigation. They may administer voluntary lie detector tests.  If Kavanaugh or Dr. Ford should refuse to take the test, that will be reported to the Senate.  Importantly, neither the White House nor Congress can dictate whose claims are or are not being investigated, nor how to run the investigation. The presumption is that all (3) named persons who claimed they were assaulted by Brett Kavanaugh will be included in the re-opened FBI investigation. 

Oh, you can bet the F.B.I. report will get leaked. Or selectively leaked.

So, eventually the rest of us will find out what facts the FBI were able to confirm in the testimony of Dr. Ford, and the claims of Ms. Rivera and Ms. Swetnick. And whether Judge Kavanaugh's sworn testimony about the meaning of "Renate Alumnius", "Devil's Triangle", and his delicate stomach were factual or perjury.  

Here is what the FBI will not assess: the judicial temperament of Brett Kavanaugh. On display last Thursday: his partisan, conspiratorial invective  ("revenge for the Clintons"), and belligerence toward Democratic members of the committee, his unrestrained lashing out. If one could not imagine Kavanaugh behaving in the manner that his accusers describe: aggressive, belligerent, out-of-control- his Thursday appearance changed that. For me. 

In my opinion, Kavanaugh's bombast and belligerence and bias- his utter lack of judicial temperament- disqualify him from creating law for the next 40 years or so on the U.S. Supreme Court. My opinion holds  no matter what the outcome of the FBI investigation. In my opinion, if the Judge believes his own "left wing" partisan "Clinton-revenge" conspiracies, then he is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court.  If he does not believe them, but thundered through his testimony to avoid providing a fact-based narrative and to deflect the Senator's questions-- then he is unfit to serve on the Supreme Court.  Further, he appeared to lie about small things- the meaning of notes in his yearbook.  And then, his failure, over and over again, to support the FBI investigation into the sexual assault claims when he was given the opportunity to do so, is deeply troubling.  To me.  

Innocent people welcome sunlight.

Someone has lied. Millions of Americans need an objective fact-finder upon which the Senate (and now, the public) will know whose testimony was verified, and whose was not. Let due process, the FBI engagement in objective fact-finding and corroboration of testimony and claims on both sides begin.