Melissa Mackenzie in Am. Spectator

Feinstein's dead legacy and how it was finally destroyed by herself.

Mitchell gently laid meandering ground work that subtly revealed the lack of substantiation.

She was collegial, kind, quiet, and deferential to Dr. Ford. No one could get their arms around the questions. Mitchell was never the focus. She melted into the background. That much is obvious considering how there’s zero clips of any exchanges between the women. There’s no video of a traumatized victim being harassed.

This is important longterm. The real fight wasn’t in the Senate chamber but on the news after this hearing. No clips. No video on endless repeat on NBC, CNN, etc. They salivated for it. The counsel for Dr. Ford were overheard asking the cameramen to not focus on Ms. Mitchell but to include the Senators. For once, Republicans were savvy. The questioner wasn’t up on the dais but low, level with the accuser.

Then, at the end of this gentle questioning, Ms. Mitchell asked the important questions. They were the questions lingering in the minds of everyone going into lunch. “You don’t remember who drove you home?” “You realize that this isn’t the best forum for these questions?” “It would be better to conduct this in private, don’t you agree?” Clever. Delegitimatize the process. Dr. Ford was a hapless victim, see? She would have preferred to be questioned in private and the Democrats denied the wishes of their own witness. No direct assault. No abuse. No cross-examination. No assumption of her being a liar.

The Republicans resisted the urge to say anything and shut up. Thank God. It would have been a disaster. Both Senator Graham and Senator Cruz could have made short work of Dr. Ford’s monster-truck sized holes in her story, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to recognize the political game being played and refuse to play it. Their restraint should be saluted. If this were a criminal trial, Dr. Ford’s allegations wouldn’t make it past a police officer’s desk. Everyone in that room knows this. The only purpose was spectacle and to portray Republicans a malevolent Old White Men. Sorry, Dems, you got outplayed on this one.

This ugly sham will be the Senator’s legacy and her shame. At the end of her career (because win or lose, her career as Senator is over), Dianne Feinstein upended the rule of law and laws of common decency. She abused a fragile woman and attempted to destroy a decent man and his family for one reason: power. Her power.

https://spectator.org/the-fever-swamp-creature-dianne-feinsteins-mess/