I was just reading an email from a longtime reader. He makes a simple point. As the debate is currently structured, if the FBI cannot turn up significant evidence to back up one of the abuse or assault claims against Kavanaugh, he gets confirmed. The copious evidence of deception and outright lies does not appear to be part of the equation right now.

This is, to put it mildly, very unfortunate.

There really shouldn’t be any level of lying that is okay for a Supreme Court Justice, certainly not as part of the confirmation process itself. But even if you set aside whether he’s telling the truth about Blasey Ford and Ramirez, Kavanaugh has clearly lied about his drinking as a young man. (President Trump himself seemed to unintentionally concede that point this morning when he said it was clear Kavanaugh had a problem with alchohol as a young man – something that Kavanaugh clearly did not concede.) He’s also clearly lied about various aspects about his yearbook and other behaviors, issues which really aren’t relevant in themselves other than Kavanaugh’s willingness to lie about them. Nor did it even begin with the claims of sexual assault and abuse. He just as clearly lied – and has repeatedly going back several years – about his role in and connection to the Manny Miranda email hacking scandal.