We’re actually going to replay the Ford/Kavanaugh clusterfark with the SAME LAWYERS ON BOTH SIDES?

I just ran into Rod Serling in my bathroom mirror. He wanted me to tell you that we’re all dead and in “the bad place.”

Although I think Rod’s lying. The idea of Democrats having to go through a near-perfect facsimile of the Kavanaugh nightmare, replete with the same legal representation in each corner, except it’s their guy in the hot seat now makes me think righties are in the very, very good place.

“I can confirm that I and my firm have been representing the Lieutenant Governor since January 2018,” said Rakesh Kilaru, a partner with Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz.

Fairfax first brought on the firm of Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz in January 2018 in connection with a possible Washington Post story about allegations brought by Vanessa Tyson, an associate politics professor at Scripps College. The Post investigated her claim, but did report on it because they could not corroborate Tyson’s account.

The firm later represented Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings after Stanford professor Christine Blasey Ford accused him of rape.

All we need now is for some lefty version of Ed Whelan to float a half-baked theory about how it was actually Fairfax’s buddy who committed the assault, then hastily retract it.

Fairfax should probably save his money, though. Looks like he’s about to face an avalanche from his own party like Ralph Northam did, if not quite the same in volume than possibly greater in sheer political weight:

I believe Dr. Vanessa Tyson.

— Rep. Jennifer Wexton (@RepWexton) February 6, 2019

Wexton is the newly elected Democratic congresswoman from Virginia’s 10th District, the one who knocked off Republican Barbara Comstock in November. She’s not spending any of her political capital in a bellwether district on trying to establish some reed-thin distinction between Kavanaugh and Fairfax. If Democrats believed Ford notwithstanding the lack of any hard evidence or contemporaneous corroboration to support her story, consistency requires them to believe Vanessa Tyson now — especially since Tyson can name a specific date and place for the assault and Fairfax has confirmed they were together in his hotel room. Wexton’s simply bowing to that reality. She hasn’t (yet) tweeted that she believes Fairfax should resign but what other course could you conceivably recommend if you believe his accuser?

It’s not just Wexton either. The tide has also begun to turn with national feminist groups:

The National Organization for Women calls on Virginia LG Justin Fairfax to resign pic.twitter.com/22g3gTydXv

— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) February 6, 2019

There’s nothing in Tyson’s account that’s outlandishly unbelievable and she has no apparent reason to lie. But there’s nothing in Fairfax’s history to make anyone believe he’d behave this way privately — and the Washington Post asked around, according to a story they published yesterday. NOW’s ready to end this guy’s career and have him be branded a de facto sex offender based on a single unsupported allegation, just to establish the ruinous precedent that one accusation, however thin, is enough.

As unsympathetic a figure as Northam is, I thought there was something to what he (allegedly) said a few days ago about having to fight for his job not because he craves power but because defiance is the only way he can claw back some respectability. Kavanaugh and Republicans faced the same dilemma. It wasn’t just a “job interview,” as lefties frequently and cavalierly insisted. If Kavanaugh had withdrawn or if Senate Republicans had voted him down, inescapably that would have been viewed as a sort of verdict on whether he was guilty of what Ford accused him of. You can live happily after losing a job. You can’t live happily having seemingly acquiesced in the world’s judgment that you’re a sex criminal (or a racist, in Northam’s case). Fairfax is in that position. It’s not just his career that’s at stake, it’s his good name. If he quits, that’ll be treated as proof that he didn’t believe that name was so good that it should be defended.