Flake starts out speech on Senate floor equalizing Kavanaugh and his accusers
...that's the end of that for me.
Portraying this sitting judge as a victim of this process is a mockery of the Court he's trying to join. Due process would affirm his reputation, not diminish it. If Kavanaugh's guilty, he has nothing to fear from an investigation.
So far, Kavanaugh has shown open contempt for the process of investigations, for due process. He doesn't deserve the shield of a legal system he's openly scorning. If he's somehow a victim of these proceedings, it's because he's trying to subjugate the judgment of criminal matters to a partisan, stacked political process, instead of insisting on an FBI investigation.
The real victims here are, of course, these sexual assault survivors who have been compelled into the public arena to bare their reputations in a effort to be believed by this committee. There's absolutely no reason for this trial-like hearing, except for the craven need and desire of republicans to discredit these accusers before the nation and advance their president's nominee to the Supreme Court.
No matter what Flake is reasoning, Kavanaugh goes into this hearing facing several weighty and consequential accusations which all carry the same devastating theme of sexual abuse and assault. Armed with little more than his questionable word, the credibility gap with these women places him firmly on the defensive.
Given that this proceeding is still about Kavanaugh's fitness for office, his lack of veracity, and his blatantly false representations of his past, it places a steep burden on him to reconcile these vile acts - acts he's been described as either witnessing or participating in - with the image he tried to portray in the interview on FOX.
Denials without anything but his word to refute them should not be accepted as a defense in the committee, by Flake or anyone else.
= new reply since forum marked as read
But what's happened to the right is contagious and infecting the left. I agree virtually entirely with the dangers you see in what has taken over the Republican Party. Our democracy is in existential crisis and we absolutely have to remove them from power and to keep majorities from forming who would replace them.
But becoming more like them in behavior risks destroying us also, and expert observers say we are. Just look around here at DU. Implacable hostility and vile, absolutist insults arising from indulgence of our basest impulses are nearly as common and just as shameless as they are on right wing forums. How on earth are we going to restore health to our nation this way?
Just now I expressed appreciation for a Republican senator's grave warnings about destructive behaviors meant very obviously almost entirely for his own Republican colleagues. That should not have stimulated ignoring my simple message to ascribe attitudes I don't have and never expressed. That's okay. As I said, these are emotional times and an emotional day. But you should know that that is exactly the kind of response I'd expect from showing Flake's message to many conservatives here in Georgia.
In any case, Christine Blasey Ford just provided a model for other citizens. Whatever she says in private, because this was performance of a public duty we infer her political leanings only from her highly principled, scrupulously nonpartisan behavior. She's living her principles by serving her entire nation. She came forward when her information would help the Republicans easily pass on Kavanaugh, should they choose (!), and then provided scrupulously honest information to the entire judicial committee.
The committee vote's after lunch. Flake will vote yes to punt it to the full senate. Big surprise. He's always been what would once have been considered, and still is, an economic extremist.
And you being you makes so much more sense. 
As for who I thought I was conversing with while I kept an eye on other things (NOT a multitasker any more), name still won't come. Whoever she is, I feel like I owe her an apology. I was surprised at "her" message but thought maybe all these dark events were dragging her down.
Carry on.
...it's really not your fault, and you don't deserve anything of what I'm feeling right now.
I see the sun's finally coming out... gonna step outside. 
