We ask 17 year olds to choose their college, take entrance exams, and make a host of other life-changing decisions. We often try them as adults for drug, theft, and assault charges. We give them felonies that will forever impact their ability to get a normal 9-5 job.
Yet somehow it's unfair to expect that an attempted sexual assault as a 17-year-old would prevent you from someday becoming a Justice of the United States Supreme Court?
Why is it that conservatives are only forgiving of youthful indiscretion when the stakes are the highest?
Because we don't automatically assume there was an indiscretion like you do. The "I don't remember when the party was, I don'r remember where the party was, I don't remember how I got there, I don't remember how I got home from there, I don't remember who was there" is not very compelling evidence.
So your theory is she made it up to impress her therapist years ago?
That's a separate argument, though.
One argument in support of Kavanaugh is that he is en led to due process and a single accusation (without due process) should not prevent him from getting a job he's otherwise en led to. I agree with that argument.
A separate argument is being made, even more vocally, that we shouldn't prevent Kavanaugh from being a SCOTUS Justice *even if he did do it* because how can we judge people for something they did as a 17 year old almost 40 years ago? That argument is incompatible with a lot of real-world precedent.
Well I don't think you are accurate when you say Republicans think that an attempted sexual assault should not be disqualifying. I think their point is that they don't believe an allegation that has so little backing it up. It's one thing to destroy someone's career with hard evidence. But this would destroy a man's career on no evidence, just he said/she said.
But to take your conclusion and apply it to both sides, wouldn't you think Bill Clinton's behavior (and I'm not talking the allegations he got when he was an adult) would have disqualified him? Or what about Obama's admitted drug use? I'm sure you would be all in on Bush's drug use and alcoholism. What youthful indiscretions are acceptable and what are the lines? And does someone have the opportunity to redeem himself?
And if you are talking only about sexual crimes, then where were you every day that Ted Kennedy was in office?
butwhatabouttheseotherguysidonotlilke
No, I don't think that's the point people are making when they say "Why judge someone for something they did as a teenager?"
That's the problem. Kavanaugh's name is never mentioned and there were 4 people in the room, not two. Ford's attorney says that it was a mistake by the therapist, but we don't know. That's the problem with the claim. I think it is absolutely conceivable, but it's also possible it is a lie. Given the timing politically, it looks like a lie, but sometimes these stories turn out to be 100% true. Problem is, if the evidence is weak to non-existent, then how can you just assume someone is guilty, at least if you are being a reasonably objective person and not partisan.
It's not a trial. It's a job application.
Well, then I think you are reading something other than what the GOP has said. I've not heard one Senator say that it doesn't matter what someone did as a teenager.
Yes, but you still have to have some fair standard to apply. What happens if the next time a Democrat nominates a Supreme Court justice, someone comes forward with a credible, but uproveable story about the candidate being a child abuser? You can come up with a story for anyone that is nominated. In your book, it's just a job application, so just find another person.
Well there is some hypocrisy there even if you don't want to admit it. Though I do not deny that in politics, everyone is a hypocrite.
Republicans will come up with any story possible.
Secret Muslim noncitizen ring a bell?
I don't think I directed the statement specifically to Republican Senators or GOP officials.
I do expect that sentiment to come out if there is a hearing, though.
Yes, that one. But there are million examples from both sides of the political spectrum. I don't know if the allegation against Kavanaugh is true or not. Based on what I know, I would tend to disregard it without something more concrete. But if it is false, it would be a new low.
But that doesn't get around that fact that there should be some standard. The whole Muslim or where was he born thing was believed by fringes (which includes Trump though we all know he didn't really believe it), but what is the standard that we should impose upon such allegations?
Not at a hearing. A Republican play is that this never happened, not that it was okay because he was 17. Maybe some internet dude says so, but internet dudes say way worse.
We'll see. They may not say it outright, but I expect the implication to be there in some form.
Meanwhile, some internet guys who have implied that we are overreacting to actions committed by a 17 year old Kavanaugh:
Ari Fleischer
Lance Morrow, WSJ
Meghan McArdle, Washington Post
Tom Nichols, author, former Senate aide
Kay S. Hymowitz, City Journal, Fellow at the Manhattan Ins ute
"A lawyer close to the White House"
Donald Trump, Jr.
Senators aren't saying it. But you act as if it isn't a legitimate question. I mean if you kill someone or rape someone at 17, then yes, that's disqualifying. But I think you have to be careful in judging a person that is in his 50s for anything he did as a teenager. If that is the new standard, each party would probably lose 95% of their representatives in Congress.
I mean Ted Kennedy drove drunk and into a lake and left his lover of the night to die and didn't report it and he still got re-elected. And he was an adult. Are you sure we want to start digging into what our politicians did in high school?
And that goes back to my original statement that we freely and frequently judge other 17 year olds for a lot less, when their upward potential is nowhere near SCOTUS.
I don't think Ted Kennedy should have stayed in Congress, and I don't think he would have if Chappequid had happened today. That's a good thing.I mean Ted Kennedy drove drunk and into a lake and left his lover of the night to die and didn't report it and he still got re-elected. And he was an adult. Are you sure we want to start digging into what our politicians did in high school?
Yes, but he was accused of boorish and groping behavior until he was so sick he couldn't get out of bed. But enough of Kennedy, he's gone now. I guess I don't know what you mean by judging 17 year-olds for a lot less.
I think she got raped but not by him around 1980-1984
Great, you get right on that.
You going to being up some other Democrat for deflection now?
You forget what year you raped her?
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