Thread by @whstancil

What is with conservatives insisting the “evidence” is on their side? The evidence they mean is two people saying they don’t remember an uneventful party and two people, accused of taking part, denying it.

https://twitter.com/noahcrothman/status/1047835533173506049

Ford doesn’t have eyewitnesses or documentary proof, but she does have support for her account of Kavanaugh’s drinking, seems to be accurately describing his friend circle in the summer of 1982, and has produced small details that hold up, like Mark Judge working at Safeway.

Moreover, a lot of the details produced by Kavanaugh HAVEN’T held up, especially regarding his yearbook and drinking, which have been contradicted by many, many others, both from high school and college. Compare the half-dozen people saying he’s lying to the zero saying Ford is.

Beyond that, there’s the entire Ramirez allegation, which does have at least secondhand support.

Finally, the credibility of Ford’s own testimony is being ignored - the lack of real inconsistencies in her story or evasiveness in her account. That’s evidence, too!

Again, compare that to Kavanaugh, who was clearly belligerent and evasive, regardless of whether you think he was justified.

I have been following every detail of this story obsessively for weeks. I’ve never said “I believe her”; I thought these allegations needed to be evaluated, not immediately believed.

But if you look at the balance of evidence in front of us and decide every bit of it supports Kavanaugh, you are not attempting to be fair. You are performing an argumentative trick, where all allegations without direct documentation are treated as inherently weightless.

In short, most of the people complaining about a “believe women” ethos are projecting - they’ve adopted a “believe men” ethos that treats men’s denials as inherently plausible, even while people come forward to question details, while a woman’s allegations require massive support