In Supreme Court hearings, years of grudge politics boil over

This is not a trial. We constantly were reminded of that as the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh escalated into a bitter partisan brawl.

But the reality amounted to two trials. The credibility of California university professor Christine Blasey Ford was being judged for her "100 percent" certainty that federal judge Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her when they were in high school in 1982. At the same time, Kavanaugh's