If Zapruder-style analysis of a missed handshake ends up being the most eventful thing to happen at this hearing, and it might, we should never hold a hearing again.

Actually, we should never hold a hearing again even if this isn’t the most eventful thing to happen. These spectacles are insufferable, insulting, grandstanding garbage for whichever party happens to be in the minority. If I were Grassley, I would have warned them this morning after the first outbursts that another one would force him to adjourn the hearing and recommend that McConnell immediately call a floor vote on the nominee. (The only senators truly in doubt about how they’re voting are red-state Democrats whose votes aren’t needed for confirmation anyway.) And when Schumer inevitably shrieked that America didn’t get a hearing on the new justice, he’d be reminded that that was what his party chose with how they behaved.

And if you’re reading that thinking, “That sounds like how you’d treat a five-year-old, taking away their toys when they won’t stop acting out”: Right. Correct.

As for the non-handshake:

Just walked up to Judge Kavanaugh as morning session ended. Put out my hand to introduce myself as Jaime Guttenberg's dad. He pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence. — Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) September 4, 2018

And, inevitably:

If Kavanaugh won’t even give him a handshake, how can we believe he would give gun violence victims a fair shake in court? https://t.co/OiDP6lB1Ez — Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris) September 4, 2018

Democrats deserve that idiot as their nominee. Anyway, judge for yourself. There are two versions below. To me it seems obvious what happened: After a morning of protesters being hauled out of the room for being unable to restrain themselves, Kavanaugh decided not to let himself be grabbed by someone he didn’t know, especially with security moving quickly to intervene. Whether he heard Fred Guttenberg introduce himself or not, only he knows. Just understand that to believe the worst interpretation of the footage, you need to believe that this guy, who’s been angling to get himself nominated for the Supreme Court since his 20s, would deliberately snub a murdered kid’s father at his confirmation hearing in full view of rolling cameras. He’s spent 30 years working towards this very moment, the whole country’s watching, up comes a Parkland dad to lobby him to … change his lifelong view of the Second Amendment in the next five minutes, I guess, and Kavanaugh backs away not for safety reasons but because a two-second grip-and-grin would be impossibly icky to him. That’s the Democratic view of this. Our politics is tremendously, tremendously stupid.

Fred Guttenberg, father of Parkland victim, Jaime, tries to shakes hands with Brett Kavanaugh: "My daughter was murdered at Parkland." White House says an "unidentified individual approached" Kavanaugh, but "before the judge was able to shake his hand, security had intervened." pic.twitter.com/IerpDMOW0h — NBC News (@NBCNews) September 4, 2018