Senator Maize Hirono has a message for American men: Shut up! Hirono gave a press conference today along with Senators Murray, Blumenthal, and Gillibrand to talk about Christine Blasey Ford allegations against Judge Kavanaugh. She was asked if having four women on the committee mattered and said it was before deciding to launch this attack at half of America.

“Guess who’s perpetuating all these kinds of actions?” Hirono said. She continued, “It’s the men in this country. And I just want to say to the men in this country, just shut up and step up. Do the right thing.” Then, after a pause, she added, “For a change.”

This is the often unspoken corollary to ‘believe all women,’ i.e. don’t listen to all men. While most of the country is looking at this allegation and wondering who is telling the truth, Sen. Hirono has already decided. Earlier in the press conference, she said of Blasey Ford, “I believe her.” And since that is settled in Hirono’s mind, there’s really no point in listening to anyone ask the accuser questions. Similarly, why listen to Judge Kavanaugh’s response if you’ve already decided he’s lying. But that’s not how things are supposed to work.

As mentioned several times today, Christine Blasey Ford has yet to commit to appearing at the hearing scheduled for next Monday. It seems the main point of this press conference was to float the idea that maybe she shouldn’t bother. Sen. Hirono said, “She is under no obligation to participate in the Republican efforts to sweep this whole thing under the rug, to continue this nomination on the fast track and to participate in a smear campaign and basically a railroad job.”

Next up, Sen. Blumenthal said she was “summoned” to the hearing without even consulting her about the date. He then compared the hearing, which would allow Blasey Ford to tell her story to the entire nation, to something out of Russia.

Sen. Gillibrand was even blunter. “We should not be rushing to judgment with a sham hearing on Monday that is designed solely to create a he-said, she-said atmosphere, assassinating her character,” Gillibrand said.

It’s pretty amazing that Gillibrand thinks it’s Ford’s character that is being assassinated here. What about the person on the other end of this accusation who hasn’t had a chance to speak for himself yet?

So the bottom line here is that Democrats have decided their best move is to delay this. Two weeks ago they were trying to do that with documents requests, now it’s calls for an FBI investigation that the FBI has already declined to pursue. In a word, this is politics and somewhere behind the scenes, Christine Blasey Ford seems to be playing along with all of it.

Here’s Sen. Hirono’s comments about men and the second clip below that is the full press conference her remarks were part of.