Unending Kavanaugh Saga Sputtering To A Conclusion... For Now

Friday morning-- AGAIN-- the battle over Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation completely dominated the news. The blockbuster NY Times investigation into Trump's history as a fraudster seems to have disappeared entirely from the headlines without a trace. These were the top xxx headlines on Memeorandum on Friday morning. Don't choke:

• Wall Street Journal: I Am an Independent, Impartial Judge by Brett M. Kavanaugh
• Washington Post: We Were Brett Kavanaugh's Drinking Buddies. We Don't Think He Should Be Confirmed by Charles Ludington, Lynne Brookes and Elizabeth Swisher
• Wall Street Journal: Friend of Dr. Ford Felt Pressure to Revisit Statement by Natalie Andrews, Rebecca Ballhaus and Sadie Gurman
• Washington Post: editorial Vote No On Kavasaugh
• Axios: We Don't Have 50 by Mike Allen
• New York Times: A Complete National Disgrace by David Brooks
• Axios: GOP nervous ahead of Kavanaugh vote: “We don't have 50 right now”  by Jonathan Swan
• New York Times: editorial How Brett Kavanaugh Failed
• Fox 13News: Man Threatened To Kill Members Of Congress Over Kavanaugh Vote, Deputies Say by Aaron Mesmer
• USA Today: Democrats' big miscalculation: Conservative women like me won't abandon Brett Kavanaugh by Stephanie Gutmann
• The Hill: GOP senator may miss Kavanaugh vote for daughter's wedding by Tal Axelrod
• Palm Beach Post: Retired Supreme Court Justice: Kavanaugh does not belong on high court by Lulu Ramadan
• USA Today editorial: Vote no on Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation
• Politico: GOP leaders all but guarantee Kavanaugh confirmation
• Slate: Christine Blasey Ford Changed Everything by Christina Cauterucci
• WDAY-TV: EXCLUSIVE: Heitkamp reveals Kavanaugh vote and reasoning to WDAY News by Kevin Wallevand
• Salt Lake Tribune editorial: Hatch attack on alleged witness is despicable
• NY Post editorial: End the farce and confirm Kavanaugh
• Raw Story: Trump supporter arrested for threatening to slaughter senators and their families for not supporting Brett Kavanaugh by Sarah Burris

Meanwhile the top story at Google News was an NPR piece, Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court Nomination Passes Key Senate Vote. McConnell shut down debate 51-49.



Back to the opinion pieces above: Yalies Charles Ludington, Lynne Brookes and Elizabeth Swisher, classmates of Kavanaugh wrote that Kavanaugh "lied to the Senate by stating, under oath, that he never drank to the point of forgetting what he was doing. We said, unequivocally, that each of us, on numerous occasions, had seen Brett stumbling drunk to the point that it would be impossible for him to state with any degree of certainty that he remembered everything that he did when drunk."

David Brooks' was correct when he wrote that "What we saw in these hearings was the unvarnished tribalization of national life. At the heart of the hearings were two dueling narratives, one from Christine Blasey Ford and one from Brett Kavanaugh. These narratives were about what did or did not happen at a party 36 years ago. There was nothing particularly ideological about the narratives, nothing that touched on capitalism, immigration or any of the other great disputes of national life." But he got it wrong when he wrote that "There is no corroborating evidence either way." There is. Trump and McConnell just made sure it would never come to light. Brooks can't be that stupid. Can he be?

Trump couldn't do it alone-- remember Ted Cruz and Dean Heller at the polls next month