The only way he could have played this and gotten himself and the Republican Old White Man brigade out of it would have been to very calmly say, “I believe Dr. Ford. She was assaulted and it is heartbreaking. I do not doubt her. But it wasn’t me.”

Then establish all of the reasons it could not have been him. Show calm credibility. Give people something to point to and say, “He’s a good man. He’s being respectful of her. There is simply no way a man like that did this.”

Right now, any woman who has ever lived with an emotionally abusive man is thinking, “Well, seen THAT before.”