RUTHFULLY YOURS

Mrs. Feinstein could learn something from the New York Times in its own debunking of the latest ill-sourced Kavanaugh allegation, in which the paper says it contacted dozens of potential witnesses and found none who would verify a complaint floated Sunday in backhanded fashion by the New Yorker magazine.

Lesson: You don’t need the FBI. Private investigators are available. Opposition researchers can be hired—just not the Fusion GPS kind, who specialize in producing anonymous, unsubstantiated slurs rather than checking them out.

The Senate Judiciary Committee and the Democratic Party have ample resources. In fact, Democrats can still do something to repair the damage, in partnership with Senate Republicans. If Mrs. Feinstein weren’t so narrowed by her life in politics that she can’t see a bigger picture, she would already have owned up to her failure in this regard and tried to clean up the mess.

After all, she is the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. She could refuse to participate in Thursday’s hearing. She could demand that it be called off. She could point out the obvious: A hearing in the absence of any attempt by the Senate to seek verifiable facts against which to measure the vague memories of accusant Christine Blasey Ford can only be a “he said, she said” travesty, a modern-day gladiatorial contest in which tribal loyalty and the loudest shouting will substitute for truth and justice.

Whatever the truth of Mr. Kavanaugh’s teenage behavior, this is not a creditworthy exercise in advise and consent. Judge Kavanaugh evidently feels obliged to go along rather than have a refusal be interpreted as guilt. He will be subjected to cross-examination by Senate Democrats in which he will be forced to admit that he drank beer in high school and went to parties. This will be more than enough for Sen. Mazie Hirono, who has already determined that Judge Kavanaugh is a liar because he’s a man, and a rapist because as a judge he might uphold democratically enacted restrictions on abortion.

Republicans are stuck playing for the mildest possible political disaster, which means pushing through Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation even while the allegations remain unresolved. But Republicans won’t, for fear of increasing their jeopardy with women, subject Ms. Ford to the cross-examination that would be requisite in any truly fact-finding forum. They likely won’t even challenge her behavior since the allegations surfaced, which has clearly seemed more aimed at conveniencing Democratic strategy in the midterms than at putting her testimony before the senators so they can assess it.

Mrs. Feinstein so far has behaved as we expect politicians to behave on most occasions: as if there is no consideration higher than what she must do to assure her re-election. But she’s 85 years old. She doesn’t need another term in the Senate. She doesn’t need one more ritual of incumbency validation.

Since the glaring absence here is any context of facts in which her fellow senators can weigh the accusation that Sen. Feinstein allowed to be sprung on Judge Kavanaugh at the last minute, she should be the one to request that the nomination be briefly put on hold. She should propose that Democrats and Republicans jointly sponsor an investigator to take a week or two to question anybody and everybody who might have been present at the alleged party or know anything about the history of Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Ford.

Mrs. Feinstein could even agree, as a gesture of expiation and good faith, to support Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation if the investigation yields no information to support Ms. Ford’s claim.

Failing that, the right thing to do is spare Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Ford an awful, purposeless hearing that cannot be anything but a disgrace to the Senate. Republicans should vote up or down based on what is on the record. Ms. Ford is free to tell her story to any senator who wants to hear it. She is free to tell it to the media as many times as she wants; she is not being denied a right to be heard. The media are free to chase down every allegation that she or anybody cares to make about Brett Kavanaugh.

All this will not be satisfying, but it wouldn’t get more satisfying as the result of Thursday’s planned hearing. And at least the Senate will not be an agent of further disgracing itself in the process. Sen. Feinstein is the author of this abomination, whether she meant to be or not, and is the one who ought to call it off.