Part of me—the tiny, optimistic part—is beginning to think that Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination cannot survive this. Not with Christine Blasey Ford's and Deborah Ramirez's credible and harrowing sexual-assault allegations out in the open, and not with #Basta king Michael Avenatti still sitting on God knows what. With increasing frequency, Kavanaugh's classmates are providing information that lends credibility to these accounts; with increasing absurdity, his advocates are dissembling. His desperation was on full display during a soft-lit Fox News interview on Monday, when he cited his purported virginity—which persisted for "many, many years" after high school—as evidence of the accusations' falsity.

Less than a day later, people who might know things were calling that into question, too.

I could be very wrong about all of this. (It would not be the first time.) For people like Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski, and Bob Corker, and even (God help us) Jeff Flake, however, there might be too much troubling evidence to ignore this time, especially when more of it seems to come to light each day. These lawmakers have all demonstrated moral courage on at least one occasion of late; this time, I really want a conservative justice but not one who is also a lecherous liar, so let's get someone else up in here is a sentiment on which only two of them must act.

But if Thursday's hearing is the farcical sham Grassley has promised, and the Judiciary Committee Republicans recommend Kavanaugh's candidacy to the full Senate on a party-line vote, and all the people named above fall obediently in line, it will be the end of Brett Kavanaugh's infamy. He will not be permanently tainted, and there will be no asterisk next to his name in the 5-4 opinions he authors. If he is confirmed, this process will be the only referendum on his character that he'll undergo for the rest of his life. There will just be Justice Kavanaugh, forever.

In 1991, a lawyer named Anita Hill agreed to testify before an all-male Senate Judiciary Committee about the conduct of then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas when the two worked together at the EEOC. She alleged that he told her about watching porn involving animals, and rape scenes, and that he boasted in graphic terms about his sexual prowess. A woman who did not testify alleged that he had pressured her for dates, and commented on the size of her breasts. A third woman remembered the second woman dissolving in tears afterwards in her office. "If you were young, black, female, reasonably attractive, and worked directly for Clarence Thomas," said another former colleague, "you knew full well you were being inspected and auditioned as a female."