The Senate Judiciary Committee hearings are over. Thank God.  What do we know?  Well, not much. Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was compelling yet uncorroborated by witnesses she put forth.  Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony was wrought with emotion and anger.  Most sex abuse incidents are not witnessed let alone reported. Where do we go from here?

The Democrats on the Committee didn’t help themselves by calling on Kavanagh to ask for an FBI inquiry in light of the fact that a member of the Committee, Diane Feinstein, knew for months about the allegations yet chose to keep quiet.  As her Republican colleagues mentioned, she could have disclosed this information and kept Dr. Ford’s name out of the spotlight.  Instead, she threw her under the bus in disclosing this at the last minute and thus forcing her to come forward publicly.

Brett Kavanaugh came out swinging.  He left behind the propriety usually assumed for such a hearing and told the members what he was thinking and feeling. Pretty compelling stuff.  He denied the accusations unequivocally and never wavered from his stance.

Here’s National Review’s opinion:

But how is a person who maintains his innocence supposed to react when a political party will credit any allegation against him, when swathes of the media presume his guilt, when every aspect of his teenage years — including notations in his yearbook — are used against him, when all the testimonials in his favor and his decades of spotless public service mean nothing?

Kavanaugh’s anger over these kinds of attacks says nothing about his jurisprudence. His extensive opinions as a D.C. Circuit Court judge are all carefully reasoned and written. His opinions on the Supreme Court, should he make it there, will no doubt be the same. Hearing a case or writing an opinion isn’t the same as defending your integrity in a high-stakes political showdown.

The most difficult challenge Kavanaugh had was pushing back on Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in high school, without seeming harsh or dismissive. He didn’t contest that she was assaulted and expressed sympathy for her — in fact, in an emotional moment, he related how his daughter suggested praying for her. But he persuasively made the case that there isn’t evidence of her contention that he was the perpetrator. The four people Ford has named as being present at the party in question say they don’t recall it, and Kavanaugh’s calendar that served as something of a journal suggests he was often out of town or otherwise accounted for on summer weekends in 1982, the year of the alleged incident.

It's hard to argue with that. That's not to say Dr. Ford was assaulted.  It's just hard to prove Brett Kavanaugh was the perp.