Jordan Peterson is a clinical psychologist/professor who has built a certain following among conservatives as an articulate target for the politically correct police. In terms of the blog, I have maybe embedded up to a handful or so short videos, but I don't follow him in the sense I follow Ron Paul, John Stossel, and Tom DiLorenzo. In this situation he is dead wrong.
Jordan Peterson responded on Twitter to a conversation between brothers (academic) Bret and (investment director) Eric Weinstein discussing no good solution to the Kavanaugh dilemma: if Kavanaugh withdrew, it would pose the dilemma of a betrayal of the American principles of due process and presumption of innocence and a precedent for the special interest tactics of personal destruction and Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation as the corrupt embodiment of an entitled white male patriarchy, whose every decision would be scrutinized under the prism of leftist progressivism. Eric responded to Bret that the situation required a healer that didn't exist in this scenario.
Jordan suggested there was a third way: Kavanaugh could resign if confirmed, arguing that he had been vindicated by the FBI and deciding, in the interests of the greater good, he would step aside in favor of another less polarizing nominee.
Peterson seems to be genuinely surprised how his brief tweet got blowback from a significant percentage of his following. He wrongly believes (on a video I'm not embedding) that it was his mistake to discuss his position in a short Twitter format (his would have fit under the original 140 characters as discussed but today's tweets can be almost twice that long). He thinks he made a mistake of not discussing it in length in a lengthy blog post, so he could flush out his fuller point of view. He thinks the fact he mentions some of our counterarguments should somehow vindicate his position. My, that's self-serving condescending bullshit; no, Jordan, I did read your blog post, and I disagree. I've included the link earlier in the post, and my readers are willing to read it and make up their own mind.
Now I haven't done another Jordan Peterson search to what if anything he has said regarding Ms. Ford's "repressed memory", the utter lack of corroboration of evidence regarding the incident in questions, even putting Kavanaugh and Ford at the same time or place, her inconsistent allegations.
What he doesn't talk about whatsoever is the preponderance of evidence involving Kavanaugh, from his friends, the women he's dated and worked with, his 12 years and over 300 judicial decisions on the bench. What Peterson doesn't note is how Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee had rejected Kavanaugh BEFORE a single hearing, BEFORE a single accusation by Ford or others, which could have been filed during the the 36 years or so after Kavanaugh allegedly assaulted Ms. Ford. Ms. Ford didn't come forward during the 3 years after he had been nominated during Bush's first term, opposed largely on partisan grounds because of his role in the Clinton impeachment effort. Ms. Ford was an activist Dem who opposed Kavanaugh and sent confidential notes to her Congressman and Feinstein for political reasons. Not to the FBI. She was reaching out to everyone she could remember to corroborate her story.
No, but Jordan does go on to personally cast his doubts, saying Kavanaugh's denial of drunk incidents during his youth was not credible (I have rarely drunk any alcohol my whole life; my Dad was pissed because it would take me up to 3 hours to drink a beer) and he thought Kavanaugh could have been less petulant in his exchanges with Democratic senators.
I do recognize that the brilliant Scalia was nominated and confirmed in the aftermath of the even more brilliant Robert Bork's failed nomination. But Peterson doesn't recognize that the Democrats have done this for Bork, Thomas and Kavanaugh. Not to mention that NONE of Clinton's or Obama's court nominees (during non-election years) have undergone the same type of personal destruction attacks or ideological resistance or abuse of filibusters.
No, Jordan, as a victim yourself of leftist mobs, you should know better than suggest that Kavanaugh should fall on his own sword for the sake of today's hyperpolitical environment; : would you resign your own positions to make way for a more politically correct psychologist? Of course not. Might progressives try to impeach Kavanaugh? It would take a super-majority in the Senate for that to happen, and that won't happen in the next several years at minimum.
