David French of National Review Online takes note of substantial changes in the campaign against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
A very strange thing happened over the weekend: If you follow Twitter closely, you’ll notice that the debate over Brett Kavanaugh moved significantly from the central question of last Thursday’s hearing — did he commit sexual assault? — to a raging debate over whether he lied about high-school slang, college drinking, and inside jokes, and whether he was just too “angry” to be a Supreme Court judge.
This torrent of commentary (most of it silly, including competing, furious arguments about how people described anal sex in 1982) obscures an important development: The sexual-assault claims against Kavanaugh are in a state of collapse. …
… Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell released a memorandum to all Republican senators summarizing Ford’s evidence against Kavanaugh. I’d urge you to read the entire thing. Democrats are describing it as a “partisan document,” but it refers to multiple, undisputed facts that should cause even Ford’s most zealous defenders to pause and reevaluate her claims.
Ford has no corroborating witnesses, and even the friend she says was at the party in question has denied being there or knowing Kavanaugh at all. She doesn’t know who invited her to the party, where it took place, how she got there, or how she got home after, by her account, Kavanaugh attacked her. But the problems go beyond gaps in memory. She has offered substantially different accounts about when the attack occurred. …
… No responsible lawyer would bring even a civil case on the facts described above, and civil cases must meet only the lowest burden of proof. Believe women? Believe men? No. Believe evidence.
