Brett Kavanaugh came into Thursday’s hearing angry and unravelling. But he’s bucked up a bit now that it’s become clear that the Democrats on the committee—appropriately empathetic during Christine Blasey Ford’s time in the hearing room—didn’t have a clue what to do with him. The Democrats were unprepared for this hearing. The list of topics they could have quizzed Kavanaugh about is long, and includes the new allegations by Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick and speculation that the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Ed Whelan may have coördinated the development of his theory of mistaken identity with Kavanaugh’s team. The Democrats elected instead to prod Kavanaugh about his drinking habits and demand—repeatedly and futilely—that he ask the White House for an F.B.I. investigation. That’s clearly not happening, and every breath spent by Dick Durbin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Richard Blumenthal, and Chris Coons on the subject was wasted. The Republicans on the committee picked up on this, and began to ask the Democrats why they didn’t simply ask Kavanaugh the questions they want the F.B.I. to probe, here and now. “So I ask my Democratic colleagues,” Mike Lee said, “if you have a question for Judge Kavanaugh, ask him! He’s right here! If that’s really what you want, the truth, ask him questions right now!” Moreover, Kavanaugh’s boisterous interruptions—however they came off on camera—were effective in interrupting the flow of questioning and flustering his interlocutors. The Democrats managed to extract a definition for “boofing” from Kavanaugh, though, so there’s that.