I watched this brief interchange and thought: this is more catastrophic for them then I really could have possibly imagined. We all get why the older men on the committee didn’t want to question Blasey Ford. But gender isn’t the only factor here. A woman treating her as a hostile witness and apparently being tone deaf to how the testimony had already gone is just as bad and maybe worse. Especially when everyone knows she is there as a stand-in for the Majority’s moral cowardice. It was so bad I even felt bad for Mitchell. After all, she’s only had a few days to prep and in the nature of things lacks the authority to shift gears from her brief.
In substantive and societal terms this is a powerful, morally healing moment. In political terms, for the Majority it seems like nothing short of a catastrophe. What’s more it is something the Majority one hundred percent brought on themselves: first attacking Blasey Ford’s credibility, then trying to bluff her out of testifying, later trying to rush the vote and finally in thinking anything good would come of having their question time used as a hostile cross examination.
It is hard to imagine how this could have gone any worse for Kavanaugh or the Majority.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/blasey-fords-shining-moment-grassleys-catastrophe