>>I watched her, and I can't imagine a more credible witness.

We are all like the denizen's in Plato's cave, looking at the moving shadows on the cave wall and thinking that's reality we are interpreting.

I wish somebody asked her, as a psychology professor, how it could be that two previously upstanding members of society could have such different versions of events.

She did allude to their laughter being "indelible" in her hippocampus, which is an allusion to current theory that in stressful situations the hippocampus is involved and memory is improved. But as you note, in the end so far all we have is anecdotal impressions of credibility based on a few minutes' questioning. With so little evidence, how natural that most of the reaction falls on partisan lines.

So here's my anecdote. Once upon a time I looked across and saw a man dangling by his neck from a tree in the park. At first I thought it was a prank. Nope. I tried to shield my precious daughters from the sight, but in the kerfuffle to call Police and get permission to go cut him down in case still alive etc etc, of course the daughters saw him hanging there.

The point of this terrible story? The above version is indelible in my hippocampus. However, daughters swear it was them who saw him first and alerted me.

That was about 5 years ago, so I can only imagine how it will be remembered after 35 years.

In the meantime, perhaps they or I will embellish the story for whatever reason, and then one day Feinstein will come along and shove us into the limelight against our will, forcing us to defend our fish that grows with every telling.

I said "perhaps" and frankly this "perhaps" is just as valid as "I found a psychology professor credible, et voila."

IMHO the bigger concern is that Kavanaugh lashed out so angrily at the Democrats who he blames for engineering this terrible process. While that is pitched by some as the reasonable actions of a man falsely accused... were I a Democrat subject to his will, could I have concerns at his partiality? At this stage, yes.

This process of putting yourself in somebody else's shoes- empathy- used to be a US specialty but IMHO its almost total lack in certain partisan groups in US society, is the cause of much of the national discontent.

Which brings me to the Russians. If you believe the Russians are stirring things up... then having sorted POTUS on the world stage, if they can now stir up loss of confidence in the SC, how they must laugh and laugh as another cherished US institution fades.