Episode 239 Scott Adams: The Kavanaugh One-Week Delay
Date: 2018-09-29 | Duration: 22:54
Topics
Applying the “Corporate Filter” to the one week Kavanaugh delay
I fund my Periscopes and podcasts via audience micro-donations on Patreon. I prefer this method over accepting advertisements or working for a "boss" somewhere because it keeps my voice independent. No one owns me, and that is rare. I'm trying in my own way to make the world a better place, and your contributions help me stay inspired to do that.
See all of my Periscope videos here…
https://www.pscp.tv/ScottAdamsSays/1nAKERDOwylGL
Find my WhenHub Interface app here…
https://interface.whenhub.com
## Transcript
## [The News: A One-Week Kavanaugh Delay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=5s)
Ba-ba-boom ba-ba ba-ba boom boom boom pop boom boom! Hey everybody, come on in here. We got news breaking. It's breaking all over the place. It's so broken I don't know if we can put it back together.
I went offline for just a few hours thinking to myself, "Hey self, it looks like there's nothing going to happen Friday afternoon. This Kavanaugh thing—we'll just take the vote next week." And then I turn on my phone and it turns out we have a one-week delay. The President has agreed—I think he just took the lead of Congress to request it—but has agreed for a one-week delay to investigate with the FBI the credible accusations against Judge Kavanaugh.
## [Personal Filters and the Kavanaugh Situation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=66s)
Now you're probably wondering: will this be a big deal or a little deal? Should we worry about this? What's going to happen? I'll give you my best take on this. As I often say, your filter on the world depends on your experience and a little bit about how you were born.
If you look at the Kavanaugh situation, if you're a woman who's ever had any run-in with sexual abuse—which turns out to be just about every woman—you're automatically looking at it through a filter of: people who are accused are usually guilty. If you're a man who has been unfairly accused of anything, you might be looking at it like Kavanaugh is being unfairly accused. Everybody's bringing their filter to this—Democrat, Republican, woman, man, whatever you are.
## [The Corporate Filter (The Dilbert Filter)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=126s)
The other filter that I like to put on this I got from my corporate days. Let's call this the "Corporate Filter." The Corporate Filter is really about any large organization. There are things that are true of a large organization in terms of their inefficiencies, the way they operate, and how fast or slow they are, that are common across all large organizations.
The FBI, in this case, would be a large organization. I'm going to apply the Corporate Filter—you might call it the "Dilbert Filter"—to this situation. Do you like that name? The Dilbert Filter. It could be a book someday.
## [The "One Week" Corner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=187s)
Here is the filter I put on the one-week delay. Number one: the Democrats painted themselves in a corner. There's a sort of good news/bad news situation here. The bad news for the Democrats is that they made such a big deal about saying, "It's just one week. What's one week? You only need one week." They repeated "one week" so often that it sort of hardened in our minds as, yeah, these things take one week. It’s a one-week situation.
The clever thing that the Republicans and President Trump have done... let me just tell Christina I'm on a Periscope because she's much more important than all of you. Sorry. I'm going to say I'll be there in 20 minutes.
## [Large Organization Inefficiency](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=252s)
Now we're back to you. You have my full attention now. The first thing is the Democrats painted themselves in a corner by saying "one week" so often that if the Republicans give them one week, it's going to be harder for them to say that one week wasn't enough. Now, of course, they will say that. There's a hundred percent chance they'll say one week isn't enough and we need more, but they did kind of paint themselves in the corner. So the President says, "I'll give you a week."
Here's the fun part; here's the Dilbert Filter on this: no organization can do anything in one week. That's it. That's the only filter you need to know. Nobody can do anything in a week. They can move and make phone calls and write stuff down, but they can't really do much. What they can do in a week is going to look like a few days of interviews, a few days of writing stuff up, and a few days to travel. It's going to be so little that they're basically going to be talking to the same people they talk to now.
Is there a risk that they'll find some new thing about Kavanaugh? Yes. The odds of them finding something new were very high, but it probably will be easily dismissed as just another thing that somebody's trying to pile on.
## [Patterns of Behavior vs. Patterns of Accusation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=375s)
Here's the other interesting part. You know how people said if Kavanaugh were really the person he was portrayed to be, then you would see a pattern of it? People who are abusers tend to be abusers. And then sure enough, you saw some low-credibility accusations, but people aren't quite giving them the same amount of weight, so it doesn't really look like there's a pattern.
But here's another pattern: people who have false memories and people who accuse other people of doing bad stuff, accuse other people of doing bad stuff. I will be very interested to know—and this would be a good question for the FBI to ask Dr. Ford—have you ever accused anybody else of something that didn't pan out in terms of a conviction? Have you ever had a memory problem? Have you ever taken any kind of pharmaceutical or recreational drug that would cause a memory problem?
Wouldn't you like to know the answers to those questions? Those are the types of things that would not be asked in front of Congress, but the FBI would certainly have a perfectly good reason to ask those questions.
## [Credibility and Witnesses](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=497s)
Given that we have no witnesses who will say they were at the scene and saw something, and given that I think it's impossible that there will be physical evidence, really it's just talking to people and asking questions. When they talk to all the people who would be potentially anti-Kavanaugh, they're going to say probably the same thing they said before, which is, "We don't have any memory of anything like that." That's sort of a dry hole. Every time you talk to somebody and they say "I have no memory of this," there's no follow-up question to be had.
But when you're talking about Dr. Ford, you’ve got a lot of stuff you can ask because you're trying to find out her credibility. You can expand those questions to anything she does or has done that gets to credibility. For example, one of the accusers who made the most outrageous claims about the gang rapes—apparently that accuser's ex-boyfriend has come public and said, "I had a restraining order against her; she has no credibility whatsoever."
Does Dr. Ford have anyone in her circle—an ex-patient, an ex-boyfriend, an ex-anything—who believes that she made something up about them? How many people has she dealt with? Is there anybody who would tell a story like a co-worker?
## [The Workplace "Dilbert Filter"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=558s)
Imagine the most common thing you could think of if you've ever worked in a big organization. Here's the Dilbert Filter again. One of the most common situations you can think of is your co-worker imagines something that happened that didn't happen. How many of you have worked in an organization where your co-workers were absolutely positive you did something that you didn't do? They're positive you stabbed them in the back, but you didn't. They're positive that you were the source of the rumor, but you weren't. They're positive you were trying to undermine them, that you came in late and lied. They're positive you've done these things, but you didn't.
Will there be people who say that Dr. Ford has made claims about them that they know to be untrue? Suppose Dr. Ford has made claims about other people that were true but they can't be proven. Then you interview that other person and they say, "Oh yeah, Dr. Ford is a serial accuser. She accused me of running over a dog or something." You can't prove it one way or another. Maybe she was actually accurate; maybe her other accusations were actually absolute truth. But if you've got somebody who goes on record and says, "Yeah, she also accused me of something I didn't do," and you can't tell if they did it or not, it doesn't help her story.
I would say there's a slightly bigger risk to the accuser than there is to the accused. With the accused, so far there's no physical evidence and no human being who can put him in the situation.
## [Kavanaugh’s Ability to Avoid Traps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=684s)
Will they ask questions like, "Brett Kavanaugh, you said you never pass out, but will you say under oath that you've never fallen asleep after having a beer?" They might ask some gotcha questions, but remember: Judge Kavanaugh is probably one of the most qualified people in the world to avoid those very questions. Can you think of anybody who would be more capable of avoiding a trap question? I can't. He probably has just about the best kind of experience you would want for somebody to understand what legal jeopardy looks like and what a trap question looks like. I like his odds.
I would say that both of them are taking a risk. The extra week is a risk for Kavanaugh and it's a risk for Dr. Ford. If I were to compare those risks, it feels like she has a slightly bigger risk. The risk that is the biggest is that there would be something anecdotal in her situation—something she did at work, someone else she accused, some medicine she was on, some mental problem she had in the past that might have been perfectly normal and she's already completely recovered. But if you have enough time, it's pretty easy to draw a picture of Ford as a person who might make a false accusation. Right now, there's nothing in evidence that would give you any kind of character insight on the false accusation/memory question. She might have other connections to other Democrats and that would work against her as well.
## [Small Lies and Yearbook Context](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=805s)
Somebody says "he is guilty and lies a lot." Well, we don't know, but you see that a lot of people had the same thoughts. So there's the yearbook stuff. Suppose they say to Kavanaugh, "The Devil's Triangle definitely means three-way sex." That's what I think it means; I've never heard it in another context. Did Judge Kavanaugh lie about the meanings of the things in his yearbook? Probably. Probably. Did Dr. Ford lie when she says she remembers having exactly one beer that night? Probably. Probably.
But I'm not sure we should judge too much about the small lies because really they weren't central to the question, or shouldn't have been, and they were just trying to make that stuff go away. It's stuff that kids do. Someone says her yearbook is worse than his—I’ve heard that, but I haven't seen it yet.
## [The Gender Midterms and the "Car" Thought Experiment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=867s)
How does this persuade the midterms? Well, we’ll have a week to find out. Here's a question for you. I'm wondering about the mechanics of getting to the polling places. How many people drive? Most people, right? Wouldn't you say probably 80% is a fair estimate? What about those families that are split? What about the families that have a Republican dad and a Hillary-loving mom? Who drives them to the poll?
If it's like just about every other family, if the man and woman are getting in a car and they're going someplace, who drives? If it's just the man and the woman, they're a couple and they're driving to the polling place, which one of them drives? Well, it could be either one, but who usually drives? Just look on the highway. Whenever you see a couple, who's driving? Is it the man or the woman? Pretty much it's the guy. The guy is usually driving.
You have an interesting situation where, if the men decided not to drive anybody else, just themselves, what would that do to the election result? I'm not suggesting this; I was just thinking of things which could affect the midterms and how this has become sort of a "gender midterm." It really is starting to look like the Democratic Party is shaping up as the party for and about women as the highest priority.
Again, every time I say this, I'm going to add to it: nothing wrong with that. It's a free country, a democracy; they can organize their party along any lines they like. It might even be a good idea, it's hard to judge. But it's just a reality that the Democratic Party is sort of a female-centric party. What would happen if the men who were Trump supporters said, "This time I'll just drive myself"? There's nothing stopping you from going separately, but if it's really come down to a battle of the genders, maybe men will drive themselves.
I'm not suggesting that's going to happen or that it should happen. It was just a funny thought I had. The people who drive the cars create a lot of friction. By friction, I mean anytime anything gets a little bit harder, it changes. For example, if voting was just a little bit harder for people from Elbonia, there would be measurably less voting. As soon as you make things easier, there's more of it; as soon as you make things a little harder, there's less of it. I can imagine if this becomes more of a gender-against-gender issue that how you get to the poll might enter the conversation in a funny way that shouldn't.
## [Analyzing Ted Cruz, Chris Coons, and Cory Booker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=1125s)
Somebody says, "You equate women with abortion." Not entirely, but that's a big part of it in terms of the way the parties are shaping up, specifically the Democrats. I watched some of the hearing today and I saw Ted Cruz talk. I thought Ted Cruz was sensational in terms of how well he presented a case. Ted Cruz was not a perfect candidate—maybe he'll be better if he tries again later, he seems to be getting better all the time—but as a lawyer, he was really good.
Following him was Chris Coons, the Democrat. Chris Coons was even a little bit better; I thought he was magnificent. Agree with me even if you might have disagreed with them: wouldn't you say that Ted Cruz did a really solid communication, persuasion, lawyer job of setting out the situation? It was great. But then Coons, the Democrat who was sort of the rebuttal, I thought he was even a little bit better. He was really, really good.
For a moment there—it didn't last very long—but for a moment I was proud of my government. Did you feel that if you watched it? Did you have a moment where you watch Ted Cruz do a really smart, classy job and then the Democrat does a rebuttal? It's polite, it's professional, it's smart, it's great. You could agree with one of them or not the other, but those were two smart people doing the people's work. For a moment I watched these two people and I had respect for my government and it felt good.
## [Cory Booker and Kamala Harris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQDAlDNCzcY&t=1247s)
Then I tuned back in a little bit later and I watched Cory Booker. I watched Cory Booker until all of my hope drained out of my body. Cory Booker, compared to Chris Coons or to Ted Cruz, is just not on the same level. He was very passionate and that part's good—that will carry him far. He was an advocate for women, and to the degree that helps him on the Democrat side, that was probably effective. But man, he is not good. You put him on a stage with Ted Cruz and with Coons and he's just going to disappear. I would say that there isn't the slightest chance you can have President Cory Booker; he just disappears against the smarter folks, frankly.
I do think Kamala Harris is a much stronger player. She's smarter, she's got more game in every way. You may not like her or her politics—you probably don't—but in terms of persuasion and game and intelligence, she seems to have the whole package.
Anyway, I am going to talk to you all later. Bye for now.