Human beings aren't very smart, so it's a good thing we don't have to do much thinking. The lovely reason for that: We already know pretty much everything, including the unknowable. It's a gift.
(And yes, we know where that gift came from.)
I didn't watch the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, but I saw plenty of excerpts on news programs after they were over. If you had a bet on who would get closer to breaking down in tears, you probably lost.
But it makes sense: Ford is getting a chance to tell her story; Kavanaugh can only repeat it's not true and speculate angrily about what is really going on.
It must be frustrating for him.
For his part, President Trump knows exactly what's going on. He knows it for a fact, and he's offered a guarantee to back it up.
(Too bad his grasp of reality is so slippery; his guarantees are worthless.)
Kavanaugh echoes Trump's suspicion about the Democrats, and they both know the motive—those guys are bad losers. Everything they do now is an attempt to get revenge for Trump's brilliant win in the 2016 election.
Republican outrage is widespread and goes deep into their sense of what is fair.
(For we humans, fair means getting whatever it is we want. Otherwise, the contest is rigged and we can prove it with impeccable logic.)
On the other hand, the Republican sense of fairness does not include letting all of Kavanaugh's accusers take their turn under oath. Which is practical. They can see the trend. Given time, the list of accusers will naturally grow. Republicans need to nip this craziness in the bud, pronto.
(One Republican senator suggested the Democrats wanted to drag this thing out until after the 2020 election. Imagine that.)
When things go wrong, humans go to work building theories about what's happening.
Suppose the Publishers Clearing House Prize Patrol knocks on your door. But after a moment of elation, you realize they're looking for your neighbor's house. He's the winner here, not you. Then you realize the neighbor in question is not one of your current neighbors, but a guy who used to be your neighbor.
Even stranger, you're the one who moved to this new house, leaving your lucky dog neighbor behind. What the hell is going on? Who could possibly connect you to neighbors you used to have? Are you the target of a foreign intelligence service, but not a very good one? Or does this thing go much deeper? Is God involved? Space aliens? Time travel? Parallel universes?
You bang away at this problem, your brain eagerly spawning solutions of a more and more bizarre nature. Absolutely ignoring the most logical explanation: You're asleep, and this is just a dream.
(Becoming aware you're asleep is called lucid dreaming, and it's pretty rare.)
You wake up, eventually, your head a-swirl with frustrating nonsense. Only because the most reasonable answer is not on the list of possibilities.
During his nightmare testimony, Kavanaugh found himself in the same dilemma, spewing conspiracy theories because he cannot consider the most likely answer: He does stuff when he's drunk he can't remember the next day.
Republican senators absolutely encourage taking this explanation off the table. But it's a gamble. One might forgive adolescent (and post-adolescent) sexual behavior, but not forgive lying about it as an adult when you're presumed to be sober as a judge.
But if Ford is the product of a Democratic con job, Kavanaugh is neither a slime ball nor a liar when he denies being a slime ball.
Ultimately, the only thing that matters is that Kavanaugh is confirmed and there's little or no blowback against Republican candidates in the mid-term elections. And taking the long view (which is necessary when you're trying to nudge Americans away from their hateful liberal stance), Republicans might be willing to take the hit in November.
Meanwhile, reality is taking a hit right now.
Kavanaugh needed to tackle the booze-addled memory question head on. He needed to defend his position he has never suffered blackouts or required any sort of adjustment to his post-drinking reality.
He needed to do something like this: Note (with backing testimony) how he found himself in a bind, about to take a test on a book he had yet to crack open. Detail how he decided to get drunk and read the book in an all-nighter. Document how he aced the test the next morning. Demonstrate how he has never lost the knowledge gained that alcohol-soaked night by reciting from memory, word-for-word, the entire text of that book—proof his memory while drunk is superior to that while sober.
(Play the theme music. Answer the question, Mr. Memory! What are the Thirty-nine Steps?)
Lacking that bravura performance, we have only his assertion he never misplaced or distorted a scintilla of reality while stumbling drunk. (Or his position he never got that drunk in his life, and can prove it. Maybe a brain scan would tell the tale.)
Or he's lying, and he knows exactly what happened the night he tried to take the clothes off a girl wearing a one-piece bathing suit on underneath. And it's his friend Mark Judge who has a problem with memory when the beers are flowing.
Or they're both lying.
Or they're telling the truth and everybody else is lying.
It's the quintessential problem on this planet, generated by the inconvenient fact human beings are the most unreliable witnesses in the universe.
Think about that, if you can.
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