Reactions

I'm writing this shortly after Thursday's testimony by Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Brent Kavanaugh and by Christine Blasey Ford, the woman who has accused him of sexual assault when they were teenagers.

I thought Ford came across as highly credible and empathetic. And I think Kavanaugh came across as arrogant, self-entitled, whiny, and obnoxious. He wasn't trying to correct the record. He was trying to out-Trump and impress the President with his obnoxiousness. But, hey, I'm biased, so I don't think I'm the one to deliver objective analysis.

Let's allow some Republicans to do that. Both Politico (link here) and The Hill (link here) published pieces with GOP reactions and they were nearly uniformly grim. "Total disaster" for Republicans said one of their party on Capitol Hill. "Abject disaster" came another.

According to New York magazine's Gabe Mitchell on Twitter, "person close to Trump says Trump is raging at how bad this has been for Republicans so far. Trump told people Ford 'seems credible.'"

I will be surprised if, by Monday morning, Kavanaugh is still the nominee. He doesn't sound like he'll withdraw his own name, but I think Republicans on Capitol Hill will pressure Trump to pull the plug.

The only possible fly in this ointment is the fact that Kavanaugh has had past opinions on executive privilege that are very favorable for Trump. He may refused to let go of what he sees as a "get out of jail free" card.

Whatever the end result, Kavanaugh did permanent damage to the GOP yesterday, both in their prospects for the midterms and in 2020. The GOP may win this battle, but they set themselves up to lose the war.

After I wrote this, I happened to read Walter Shapiro's excellent essay in Roll Call (link here) where the title says it all: "Either Kavanaugh Goes Down or the Republicans Do."