Friday, Chairman Grassley set a series of deadlines for Christine Blasey Ford to decide whether or not she intended to testify next week. The first deadline was 10 am Friday, then that got pushed to 5 pm. Finally, the deadline was pushed again to 10 pm and Grassley said that if he didn’t hear from Ford or if she chose not to testify, a vote would take place Monday.

Shortly before the 10 pm deadline, Ford’s attorney released a new statement saying the deadline was “arbitrary” and asking for an additional 24-hours so Ford could make up her mind about testifying.

As I suggested last night, this was pretty predictable. Yes, Grassley could have stuck to his 10 pm deadline and held the vote Monday without hearing from Ford, but you can probably guess what the media would do with that scenario. The story would be that the GOP was ignoring a victim because over a technicality. So, Grassley chose not to hand the media a cudgel to beat him with and extended the deadline once again. He obviously wasn’t too happy about it:

Five times now we hv granted extension for Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w her desire stated one wk ago that she wants to tell senate her story Dr Ford if u changed ur mind say so so we can move on I want to hear ur testimony. Come to us or we to u

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018

Grassley also issued a kind of apology directly to Judge Kavanaugh for all the back and forth:

Judge Kavanaugh I just granted another extension to Dr Ford to decide if she wants to proceed w the statement she made last week to testify to the senate She shld decide so we can move on I want to hear her. I hope u understand. It’s not my normal approach to b indecisive

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018

Finally, Grassley expressed some frustration saying it felt like Chuck Schumer was running the judiciary committee:

With all the extensions we give Dr Ford to decide if she still wants to testify to the Senate I feel like I’m playing 2nd trombone in the judiciary orchestra and Schumer is the conductor

— ChuckGrassley (@ChuckGrassley) September 22, 2018

Did Ford really need another 24 hours? She’s had all week to make up her mind about her plans. So why drag this out another day?

When this drama started, Ford was presented as just a regular person who just wanted a chance to tell her story. But she’s clearly decided to embrace the role of partisan adversary. I think she blew the deadline because it was a way to give the GOP in general, and Grassley in particular, a thumb in the eye. She’s playing to the left’s base. She’s persisting. She’s being a nasty woman. This is looking more like standard left-wing resistance politics with every day that passes.

I guess we see tonight whether she finally commits or comes up with some new demands for Grassley to meet.