The cynic in me firmly believes that by the time of the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing, McConnell knew he had Flake, Collins, and Manchin firmly in the bag. This allowed him to:
(1) Let Flake do his Hamlet routine, and after much posturing and gnashing of teeth, demand the FBI investigation (a bogus investigation that was never going to change Flake’s mind);
(2) Allow Murkowski to appease her Alaska colleagues and constituents, by appearing as the voice of conscience and reason against Kavanaugh (she will repay McConnell and Trump in spades somewhere down the line);
(3) Indulge Collins in her charade of pretending to agonize over a decision until the very last second, at which point she brandished a 45-minute written speech justifying what she had decided long ago. Manchin, too, got to throw some red meat to his WV voters, something I don’t think he hated doing.
In the above scenario, the only true hero is Heidi Heitkamp. And as a footnote, I’ll add that while we may hate Mitch McConnell, if we underestimate his Machiavellian genius, we do so at our peril.
Collins told a rapt Senate that she does not believe that sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh rise to a level to “fairly prevent” him from serving on the high court.
In a way, she has a point. I mean, is it fair to prevent him from becoming a Supreme Court Justice with just three allegations of inappropriate/violent behaviour, when we have a President with nineteen?
Maybe it will work, I do not know, not being from TN. Maybe the article is over hyped. I doubt that move works though. But we will see.
OK Susan what did they promised you? Did the republican old white men promise you a place at the dinner table if you voted their way,
Promises, promises. You first said that you would only be a two term senator, now you’re going into your.Third term. And you promised to uphold a woman’s right to choose and here we are, you’re a fraud.
This is an AP story. You can criticize TPM for running it, but not for how it was done. TPM staffers have the freedom to call 'em like they see 'em.
Dear TPM: that word “moderate” means what you think it means, and therefore does not apply to any Republican in Congress – very much including Collins.
P.S. You can quite legitimately refer to those who like to pose as “moderates” as Very Serious Weathervanes (VSWs).
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit when I thought about the fact that we could have a 6-3 liberal court.
So now what happens when more stories from Rapist Bartbie and his Frat Boy Dream House emerge, there were already a bunch of them ignored by the investigation just this week but that doesn’t mean that’s the end of them, likely exactly the opposite. Vetting is actually to keep you from being damaged by selecting someone who’s going to be mired in scandals, one of the downsides of rushing through that part is that they themselves don’t even know what’s coming.
In the meantime holy crap, a court full of sexual abusers. Maybe Carl Bernstein can write a follow up book to Bod Woodward’s called “The Brothren - Inside the Supreme Frat House”
My guess is that Collins won’t run again, probably hadn’t even planned to, but had hoped to hang onto her moderate cred. But she will be pilloried and blamed every single time Kav is the deciding vote on some awful ruling. What she doesn’t understand is that men can vote for a rapist and be completely forgiven. She can’t. Her legacy is destroyed in a way I don’t recall having seen before. She’s going to become the poster child of complicit women in the #metoo movement, in the Resistance. Although I’m sure she thinks she can rely on the goodwill she gained from Republicans, it’s because she forgets that she’s still just a woman to them. As soon as she steps out of line, they’ll chop her pinky off just as they did to Serena.
“Murkowski said her decision was ‘agonizing’ and she was ‘truly leaning’ toward confirming Kavanaugh. But after watching his testimony, she said, she could not in her conscience conclude ‘that he is the right person’ for the court at this time.”
(1) Obviously it is great that Murkowski voted against Kavanaugh. She is reachable (just about, but hallelujah!), unlike all the others who are irreversibly fucked in the head.
(2) It is depressing that it took the manifest awfulness last Thursday from Kavanaugh to dislodge her from her otherwise Yes vote. Everything else was fine with her. It should not be this difficult.
(3) “at this time”? Weak stuff.
I don’t think she ever had a legacy. With this vote or without it, she was never going to be anything but yesterday’s papers when she retired.
@dominic I personally would love to see Murkowski go Independent and have the option to vote with us more than she has previously. Politico was reporting this is a possibility, and I really do hope it happens.
Sadly, the media makes the most money hawking the perpetual horse-race. As Republicans have become increasingly loathsome, the thumb on the scale has necessarily had to press with more force on that side to achieve the illusion of balance. If you blindly follow a madman, you are likely to end up in the brambles, or deep in the swamp, or falling off a cliff. Perhaps the media will recognize the problem just enough to save itself from this fate, but it will probably be too late for the rest of us.
“Kavanaugh had cleared a hurdle by reassuring [Collins] that he believed the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on abortion rights is settled law.”
Perhaps Collins is in fact genuinely very stupid? Just a thought.
I think she could’ve had a decent one had she been a vote against Kav. She’d have probably gotten a bit of the John McCain treatment as some kind of arbiter of decency. She chose to throw that all away and now becomes the face of complicity. She’ll have a legacy now. It’s not one anyone would want.
I agree. She could’ve had a legacy if she’d voted no. But she didn’t so now that baton is passed to Murkowski, whose no vote I very much respect.
Let us not assume too much character from Murkowski. She was probably pressured by the Native Peoples issue, and the public position of the governor of her state. You can be reasonably sure that she acted mostly out of self-interest rather than conscience.
When you lose your next election and are sitting at home, what will kavanaugh’s promises mean, Susie-q? Jack squat. Liars lie.
I agree. I fully expect to hear that she has “chosen to retire” soon.
I know you’re right there, and truthfully a term like “legacy” is a little high falutin’ for the likes of both Murkowski and Collins, but Murkowski still did vote the way I think she should have so there’s that.