San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Democrats their own worst enemy in fight over Kavanaugh
I’m not sure they had a shot at winning, now or ever — but Democrats seriously dropped the ball in their fight to stop the Senate confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.
For starters, Sen. Dianne Feinstein should have handed that letter Christine Blasey Ford wrote, accusing Kavanaugh of trying to rape her when they were teenagers, to the FBI the moment she received it.
I understand Feinstein’s desire to respect Ford’s request for confidentiality, but finding a a way to get it to the FBI early on would have
Democratic senators should have ... allowed the Republicans to say what they wanted, and let the public be the jury.
allowed a prompt investigation. As it is, Feinstein gave Republicans a talking point — those bad Democrats sprang this at the 11th hour in a political stunt.
Now, there’s going to be an FBI probe after all, thanks to Arizona GOP Sen. Jeff Flake’s last-minute attack of conscience. But the Republicans got to score their points, and the Democrats are the worse for it.
Second, during Thursday’s hearings on Ford’s charge, the Democrats should have quit when they were ahead.
Ford proved to be a credible and sympathetic witness whom America was ready to believe. Kavanaugh was just the opposite during his opening statement, coming across as not just angry, but unhinged.
It was not a good look, and he appeared ready for a fall. The Democratic senators should have just left it at that, allowed the Republicans to say what they wanted, and let the public be the jury.
Instead, they plowed on with what turned into an increasingly personal attack. The longer they went, the more Kavanaugh got to play the victim.
The Republicans, on the other hand, handled the hearing like pros. They kept their hands clean by having Rachel Mitchell, a sex-crimes prosecutor from Arizona, ask bland questions of Ford.
When Kavanaugh came on, they said thank you very much to Mitchell, and South Carolina GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham began ripping into the Democrats. The Democrats played right into his accusations of a “smear” by asking about things like entries in Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook. Perhaps now the FBI will save the Democrats by finding something about Kavanaugh. More likely the probe will end inconclusively, giving the Republicans full cover to confirm Kavanaugh.
That’s politics.
Play ball: Interesting twist at a fundraiser for Sen. Dianne Feinstein the other day at the L.A. home of Roz Wyman, who is quite interesting in her own right.
Wyman is 87. Fiftyfive years ago, she became the youngest person ever elected to the Los Angeles City Council, and when the Dodgers were ready to pick up and move out of Brooklyn, she was instrumental in luring the team to L.A.
Of course she’s a Dodgers partisan to this day, and among the invitees were a bunch of high-roller fellow fans. They agreed to donate the max to Feinstein on one condition — that Giants President Larry Baer and other team representatives show up with hot dogs for all.
The Giants accommodated.
Of course, when Feinstein got up to speak, she invited former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda to join her. Then she showed him what a post-1988 World Series championship ring looks like, holding up a hand adorned with one of the three that Baer has collected this decade.
Enter Sandmen: There’s a story about how Metallica wound up performing at the Dreamforce confab.
Metallica usually doesn’t have any interest in playing corporate events, and they certainly don’t need the work.
Nonetheless, I’m told that Salesforce boss Marc Benioff approached one of the band members a while back after a show and asked them to consider the gig.
“That’s not really the type of thing we like to do,” Benioff was told.
OK, Benioff said, handing the band member a folded check. “But if you change your mind, this is what we would pay each of you.” The band member tossed the check into his bag without even looking at. There it stayed, uncashed, until the band had a meeting to discuss their plans for the year.
“We have an offer from Salesforce to play at their annual convention,” their manager said.
The band member rooted around his bag and found the check. It was for $500,000.
True? Well, one of the band’s managers told it to me. And either way, Metallica was most definitely playing at Civic Center on Wednesday night — raising huge gobs of money (millions, in fact) in a benefit for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital.
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