An attempted rapist, or an innocent man destroyed by false accusation?

News tonight from The New Yorker: a woman claims she was drunk at a college party with Brett Kavanaugh, who pulled his pants down and showed her his wing-wang:

The woman at the center of the story, Deborah Ramirez, who is fifty-three, attended Yale with Kavanaugh, where she studied sociology and psychology. Later, she spent years working for an organization that supports victims of domestic violence. The New Yorker contacted Ramirez after learning of her possible involvement in an incident involving Kavanaugh. The allegation was conveyed to Democratic senators by a civil-rights lawyer. For Ramirez, the sudden attention has been unwelcome, and prompted difficult choices. She was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident. In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away. Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

Kavanaugh says it’s a lie. More from the magazine:

Ramirez acknowledged that there are significant gaps in her memories of the evening, and that, if she ever presents her story to the F.B.I. or members of the Senate, she will inevitably be pressed on her motivation for coming forward after so many years, and questioned about her memory, given her drinking at the party. And yet, after several days of considering the matter carefully, she said, “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.”

So the FBI is supposed to investigate whether or not a drunk college boy pulled down his pants at a drunken college party and exposed himself to a college girl who was so drunk that she can’t clearly remember the event, and had to take six days to think about whether or not it actually happened? It was so devastatingly traumatic to her that she had to ponder for a week about whether or not it happened, and whether or not it was Brett Kavanaugh?

This is what they’re throwing at Brett Kavanaugh now? Even the New Yorker writes that it

has not confirmed with other eyewitnesses that Kavanaugh was present at the party. The magazine contacted several dozen classmates of Ramirez and Kavanaugh regarding the incident. Many did not respond to interview requests; others declined to comment, or said they did not attend or remember the party.

But the magazine published the story anyway, because hey, they have a nomination to stop. Disgraceful!

I have never had strong feelings about Kavanaugh’s nomination — I was an Amy Coney Barrett fan — but this is infuriating. They’re destroying this man’s reputation publicly, on the flimsiest of evidence.

His nomination may go down. But this will not be forgotten.

UPDATE: And now, Stormy Daniels’s lawyer weighs in:

My e-mail of moments ago with Mike Davis, Chief Counsel for Nominations for U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary. We demand that this process be thorough, open and fair, which is what the American public deserves. It must not be rushed and evidence/witnesses must not be hidden. pic.twitter.com/11XLZJBTtY — Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 24, 2018

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UPDATE.2: Reader Nate J:

Honestly, I don’t see how American political culture comes back from this. I know it’s fashionable for each side to argue that the other has “reached a new low” over the latest political stunt, but this really feels like a “Crossing the Rubicon” moment. We cannot go back. I felt some apprehension about the Roy Moore debacle, but I guess I brushed it off because he was a weaker candidate and an obvious target for progressive scorn. This is different. This is a good man. A volunteer. A person who has worked diligently to study his craft. A devoted husband with a nice family. His wife served cupcakes to the paparazzi staking out his house, for cryinv out loud! If he cannot stand, who can? It seems to me that this story is awfully similar to the first: a politically active leftist suddenly remembers an event from over three decades ago, despite the fact that nobody else mentioned in the story has the faintest clue what she is talking about. Weak evidence stacked on weak evidence does not become strong evidence. This does NOT make Christine Ford’s account (now refuted by all named witnesses and Brett Kavanaugh’s calendar) more credible. Show trial plus show trial does not equal justice. The bitter struggle for power is all that is left. Terminal stage of the postmodern disease. I don’t know where this all goes, but it’s scary. I don’t think anyone — left, right, or centre — could feel good about any of this right now. Chaos reigns. Not even the thought of Amy Coney Barrett swooping in to “save the day” for conservatives gives any comfort. I don’t even believe one side could even “win” right now, nor that any one person could salvage this.

UPDATE.3:

Read this paragraph from the New York Times, then re-read it. https://t.co/6Qt4UnW4F2pic.twitter.com/ngigW5au5u — Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 24, 2018

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