Late on Tuesday, the GOP held a little press conference in Congress where they address Thursday's scheduled hearing regarding sexual assault allegations by Dr. Ford against Brett Kavanaugh. The GOP decided the optics of questioning a woman alleging sexual assault would be too similar to the Anita Hill hearings. So, to avoid these terrible optics, they decided to hire a female prosecutor to question Dr. Ford.
Ari Melber's The Beat had a clip of Mitch "the turtle" McConnell talking about this attorney and...just watch it.
KATTY KAY: Yeah, by the way, Mitch McConnell may have a point, that they should worry about how this is going to look, because he this afternoon called the woman in question, who I believe is an expert in the field of sexual harassment and is a prosecutor herself, a lawyer herself, he called her an "assistant". So that may be some indication of the kind of mistake Republicans would like to avoid.
MELBER: You make an important point. Let me play Mitch McConnell for your analysis of that quote, let's take a look.
(CLIP)
KASIE HUNT: Everyone on the Judiciary Committee, all men. You don't have women making decisions about Judge Kavanaugh. What message does that send to the American people?
MCCONNELL: We're looking for the truth here. We have hired a female assistant to go on staff and to ask these questions in a respectful and professional way.
KATTY KAY: I think she makes the coffee afterwards as well? For all the male Senators? Look, this is their problem, right? This is why they have made this call that they can't be the ones standing there. I actually gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking it wasn't what it was coming out of their mouth, it was the optics of 11 men sitting there. Having heard Mitch McConnell this afternoon, it makes me think they needed to worry about the tone of their questioning as well.
Here's how it looks now:
1. The GOP is pathetic and scared
2. Hiring a prosecutor makes it sound like Dr. Ford is the offender, not the victim
3. McConnell actually called her a "female assistant" versus a "female attorney" or even just an "attorney"
Let's see how bad this trainwreck actually is on Thursday.
