Stall, Stall, Stall

After a week or more of demanding an FBI investigation into the accusations against Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh, the Democrats finally have one. naturally they are not satisfied. Why? Because they are to turn in the results in a week. Fired FBI Director James Comey wrote an editorial in the New York Times complaining that it needs to be an open-ended investigation.

Contrast this with what was being said just a few days ago. Democrats were insisting that the FBI conduct an investigation prior to Dr. Ford testifying. Back then they insisted that such an investigation would only take a couple of days. Here's an example from CBS News:

Townsend said the FBI probe into the claims would take "a couple of days."

"This is not weeks or months," she said.

Townsend pointed to Anita Hill's testimony in 1991 for the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, where Hill alleged Thomas had engage in sexual misconduct.

Why would an investigation take a couple of days before the hearing but need more than three times that long now?

Because it's not about finding the truth, it's about stalling. They tossed out the "couple of days" figure to try to delay reopening the hearing. If the Republicans had gone along with that then the Democrats have insisted on stretching out the investigation. The goal was to delay the hearing as long as possible.

Now that they got the hearing and the investigation they are trying to delay the confirmation vote. The investigation is just a tool to delay the vote.

That's how the confirmation process has been going all along. Senators who announced that they were opposed to Kavanaugh insisted that they needed every possible document from his time in the Bush administration. This was a combination of stalling tactic and hope that something disqualifying would miraculously appear.

Once the FBI finishes its investigation then something else will come up and the Democrats will demand more delays. The short-term goal is to push the confirmation past the election. Then, the Democrats will argue that a lame-duck Senate shouldn't be able to hold a confirmation vote. Their real hope is to take the Senate then refuse to confirm any Trump nominees.

As a long-term strategy, this is terrible. It invites retribution and court-packing since nominees will only be confirmed when the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party.

The Democrats need to realize that's where this is going and ask themselves if that's the future they really want.

Then kick themselves for answered yes and answer the question again.