This morning Joe Scarborough said on his show that Democrats were being incredibly cynical when they suddenly claimed Christine Blasey Ford was being railroaded into testifying just 24-hours after demanding she be given a chance to testify.

“It’s very cynical of Democrats,” Scarborough said. Noting they released her letter against her will and then demanded, “that she has her time in front of the committee,” only to have her later reverse course and say, “I’m not ready to go testify on Monday, I want something else out there before I go do that.”

But the really cynical part was that as soon as the GOP agreed Ford should testify, Democrats claimed they were attacking her.

“I saw this, respected Democrats saying ‘Oh, these Republicans have set this the poor woman up to…walk through a gauntlet on Monday,” Scarborough said. He continued, “No, actually, Republicans — everybody was screaming at the Republican party 24 hours ago that they needed to give her a hearing. Let her voice be heard.”

He added, “And now they’re attacking…claiming that this was all a part of some attempt by Republicans to play this like masters.”

Mika Brezinski backed Scarborough up saying, “Everyone said ‘let her speak, let her testify, give her a moment to have her voice, let’s hear her story.’ I think she even said she would testify.” She continued, “So, I guess some could argue and some Republicans could argue, this is moving the goalposts. And it’s moving the goalpost in an impossible direction because every legal analyst we have had on the show— you’re a lawyer, you know the law— there’s no way of finding out what happened in high school.

“There are statutes of limitation for a reason. So we need to hear from her. And that’s why everybody is open to hearing from a woman. But if she doesn’t want to speak, if she doesn’t want to testify you have to wonder what the Republicans really are supposed to do except demand a vote.

“This is something that happened in high school. This is going to need her voice. There’s no other way around it. No one can do it for her, as miserable as that may be.”

Wow, that’s Mika, the reciter of Democratic talking points saying all of that and she’s exactly right. There is no alternative to Ford’s testimony. Either she gives it Monday, with or without the cameras, or this entire accusation has to be judged not substantial enough to prevent a vote.

It really seems as if Democrats demanded Ford be allowed to speak never imagining the GOP would agree. I guess the plan was to try to profit politically off of the GOP’s refusal, i.e. ‘What are Republicans afraid of?’ But as soon as Grassley said, ‘How about Monday’ the entire party had to reframe that win as a loss. If the GOP couldn’t be accused of misogyny for denying Ford a chance to speak, they would be accused of misogyny for allowing her a chance. What we heard yesterday in this press conference was the sound of goalposts being dragged around in circles by Democratic Senators.