Everyone in the civilized world will be watching the cross-examining by Republican senators of Christine Blasey Ford next Thursday. And it won’t be pretty — let’s face it. On one hand the process allows for questioning by in-the-tank contrarians. On the other hand it is fair to ask for details and substantiation, etc. But the ugliness will be rank. It will almost certainly make a lot of people furious. And it’ll probably tip things even more in the direction of Democratic candidates a few weeks hence.

What bothers me is what those Florida women said the other day. They’d all bought into the “they were just teenagers, louche behavior is par for the course” rationale. Who are these women? What kind of course upbringing did they get from their families? Did they really witness an occasional case of attempted rape when they were in their teens, enough so that they regard this kind of thing as par for the course?