Dude, she’s running, as Allahpundit likes to say. Or at the very least, Chelsea Clinton is limbering up by moving goalposts. This clip from CBS This Morning is less notable for the argument Chelsea makes against Brett Kavanaugh than the one she doesn’t make:

"I don’t .. Admittedly my opposition is kind of rooted in policy, but I now am even more intense in my feelings because of how political he’s become.” –@ChelseaClinton on whether she thinks Brett #Kavanaugh should be confirmed pic.twitter.com/BPnmpk1dIE

— Norah O'Donnell 🇺🇸 (@NorahODonnell) October 3, 2018

Bad on policy? Check. Temperament? Check. Note, however, that Chelsea fails to include — at least in this response — the allegations coming at Kavanaugh of sexual assault, heavy drinking, and of ice-chucking. It’s a clever device to use for the temperament/political argument by clutching pearls over Kavanaugh’s reaction to being smeared without ever mentioning the smear. Chelsea’s not the first Democrat to do this, but she’s catching up.

That will likely have to be the strategy going forward for Democrats, too, as the allegations seem to be getting a little more threadbare rather than gaining credibility. For instance, one Yale classmate has come forward to claim that there really was someone known for what Deborah Ramirez alleges — exposing himself aggressively at parties — but that it wasn’t Brett Kavanaugh:

Days after Brett Kavanaugh denied the sexual misconduct allegations that have imperiled his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, a Yale classmate of his came forward to the Senate Judiciary Committee to suggest one of the accusers was “mistaken” in alleging Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a night of drinking their first year on campus.

The former classmate, Joseph Smith Jr., now a partner in the Denver office of Bartlit Beck Herman Palenchar & Scott, told the judiciary committee he thinks “it’s likely that [Deborah] Ramirez is mistaken about Kavanaugh exposing himself at a party.”

Smith, who was a year behind Kavanaugh and Ramirez at Yale, identified another undergraduate student who was allegedly known to engage in such behavior. The NLJ was unable to reach the classmate for comment about what Smith told judiciary committee investigators.

“There was one male undergraduate who had a reputation for doing that while I was at Yale, and it was not Kavanaugh,” Smith, a 1988 Yale graduate, told the judiciary committee. Smith said he had witnessed the student expose himself at a party.

This was sworn testimony from an attorney, at least according to the National Law Journal, with well-known consequences for his status as a lawyer if falsely attested. That doesn’t necessarily make it accurate or true, but Smith’s recollection has to be taken into context with Ramirez’, who only in the last few weeks decided that it had to be Brett Kavanaugh who did it. With Julie Swetnick’s credibility collapsing and Ford’s supposed witnesses denying any knowledge of her account, Democrats will need a Plan C to stop Kavanaugh. Partisanship and judicial temperament may be all they have left.  It’ll take a lot of strength to carry the goalposts that far, which is why Chelsea’s getting in her calisthenics now.