Today’s quote comes to us from Alan Dershowitz, the iconic Harvard Law School professor and lifelong liberal Democrat who is now reviled for daring to think for himself rather than toeing the party line on every issue.
Professor Dershowitz warned against Republicans selecting prosecutor Rachel Mitchell to question christine blasey ford, on the grounds that she did not have the proper experience to conduct the necessary cross examination.
(Republicans may have come to a similar conclusion about Ms. Mitchell’s effectiveness during the day of testimony, because they “retired” her during Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony and asked the questions themselves. In fairness, this also might have been because they felt it less necessary to have a woman asking the questions with Brett Kavanaugh than they did for ford.)
Here is Mr. Dershowitz’s retrospective on Ms. Mitchell’s performance:
“I was criticized very much for making that point I turned out to be 100% right. She was totally and completely incompetent in terms of asking cross-examination questions. Because she has little experience.
“For example, the main issue now is whether or not (ford) recognized Kavanaugh correctly. She was never asked whether ‘how well she knew him, how many times she encountered him before this. How close was their relationship?’”
“There was nothing that could raise questions about whether even if she believes she is telling the truth, she may have misidentified. So she just did a terrible job. And I think the Republicans realized that and they canned her right in the middle. But it was a very bad choice.”
Do I agree with Alan Dershowitz (who, as a matter of disclosure, I once met, very briefly, in an elevator of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem)?
No I do not. I think the more aggressively Rachel Mitchell would have cross examined christine blasey ford, the more sympathetic a figure she would have become.
Going after ford this way would have been perceived as “re-victimizing” her and, confirmation-wise, would have pushed fence-sitting Republicans like Susan Collins, Linda Murkowski, Jeff Flake and Bob Corker to the “against” side.
In other words, it would have resulted in a classic pyrrhic victory. Take ford down, and take Kavanaugh down with her.
I award Alan Dershowitz Quote Of The Day honors for, in his capacity as a great judicial and educational icon, pointing out the legal-strategy flaws in Rachel Mitchell’s questioning of christine blasey ford…while wishing he had also taken into account the negative political implications of doing so.
