With a late and well-calculated leak, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have managed at least to cast some doubt upon the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. They have lured an out accuser from Kavanaugh's high school days and induced her to go public. She claims that as a high school junior or rising senior he made unwarranted sexual advances toward her at a party (this is believed to be sometime in summer 1982, although the accuser does not remember exact dates), actually pinning her down and touching her inappropriately. She also claims that he put his hand over her mouth when she tried to cry out. She says that she got free and locked herself in a bathroom.

Kavanaugh has categorically denied the allegations. So does the only other alleged witness, who is also accused of taking part in the alleged attack.

Note that this not at all like the many accusations against senators, judges, Hollywood producers and Catholic bishops, which took place when they were adults, and whose conduct routinely raised warning flags, and who in some cases had as many as a dozen different accusers and even photographs (Al Franken) proving very recent inappropriate conduct. We don't usually root out Supreme Court nominees' conduct from high school, and if we started doing so it would be doubtful in most cases whether anything that happened could be proven one way or another -- as in this case.

Unlike those other accusations against others, this is an unprovable accusation from a high school party that allegedly took place in the early Reagan era. And it comes at the very tail end of a hearing process in which Democrats failed to put a dent in Kavanaugh with anything else. Its lack of certain detail also makes it harder to refute. The haziness of the dates, for example, makes it impossible for Kavanaugh to prove he was elsewhere, if that were a defense.

For that reason, I do hope that senators take this with a grain of salt. Even if the accuser sincerely believes that something happened to her and that it was Kavanaugh who did it, one should smell the proverbial rat in the fact that this was sprung on everyone after all else had failed. At the heart of this Supreme Court battle is the a very heavy ideological commitment to keeping the nation's abortionists busy, and it's so important to some people that they'll do almost anything to avoid what they think amounts to losing.

All of that having been said, Democrats have already won a big victory with this leak. This last-minute trick, whether or not it delays or derails Kavanaugh, gives every Democratic senator -- including the vulnerable Red State Democrats who are under pressure due to this nomination -- a perfectly good excuse to vote against Kavanaugh. They don't even have to act like they believe the accusation, they only have to say that not enough time was spent investigating it.

In that sense, it's quite a coup, even if it represents the worst of Washington gutter tactics.