This has been their strategy for millennia

Well, it seems the Republicans have learned exactly one thing in the 27 years since the Anita Hill hearings: be respectful to the woman in the first 24 hours. Hey, that’s progress. At this rate, they’ll demand an FBI investigation in 2045, and by 2072, who knows, maybe they’ll actually believe the woman!

Read this New York Times article from October 7, 1991. It’s the first-day article announcing the explosive news that Hill accused Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment just two days away from his full Senate confirmation vote.

In it, the reporter writes that the George H.W. Bush White House began pushback against Hill that very day, or the day before: White House staffers gave reporters the name of another woman who had worked with Hill and Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and would vouch for Thomas. The woman said Hill was making the charges up out of spite that Thomas “did not show any sexual interest in her” (the Times’ words, not the woman’s).

Compare to today. Kellyanne Conway said straight out of the chute that Dr. Ford deserves to be heard. Donald Trump said nothing untoward about her. Can you imagine how itchy his Twitter finger was on Monday morning? But they hid his smart phone in the White House gym or vegetable cellar or some other chamber Trump doesn’t frequent.

I’m not complimenting them. I’m observing that they figured out that the narrative on these kinds of things is set in the first 24 hours and so it was crucial that for those 24 hours, they behave themselves. Seem like they learned from last time, or even from #MeToo.

Lindsey Graham, earlier in the week, even uttered the r-word: “I’d have a hard time putting somebody on the Court that I thought tried to rape somebody. Period.” That quote arrested me, as it seemed to indicate that Graham was actually being open to the possibility of an investigation to determine just what Brett Kavanaugh actually did that night.

But within 24 hours, Graham was back on side. “Requiring an FBI investigation of a 36-year-old allegation (without specific references to time or location) before Professor Ford will appear before the Judiciary Committee is not about finding the truth, but delaying the process till after the midterm elections,” Graham tweeted after Christine Blasey Ford's lawyer said she wanted an FBI investigation before testifying. “It is imperative the Judiciary committee move forward on the Kavanaugh nomination and a committee vote be taken ASAP.”

So that’s what they’ve learned in 27 years—and evidently, it’s all they need to learn, because it looks like it’s going to get their nominee through. They played it cool at the start so that the first-day stories wouldn’t say the Republicans blew a gasket and immediately started discrediting the woman; so that instead, those stories would say “Republicans agree Dr. Ford should be heard.” Establish them as reasonable people. Then, once they skated through that news cycle, they’d start turning the screws.

They played it like Bond villains. Sit down, Meestah Bond. We are both men of the world. We have much to discuss. Beluga caviar? Dom Perignon ’55? What’s that, you prefer the ’53? Alfonso, down to the cellar, fetch a bottle of the ’53! It’s all civility for a few hours. Then they attach him to the laser beam machine with the piranhas swimming below.

That’s what the Republicans do, except they’re smarter than Blofeld. They don’t walk away so the captive can escape. They stay and watch. They finish the job.