Perhaps based on my questionable advice, the Senate Judiciary Committee will reopen the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing to take additional testimony from Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. Whether they will take the next step and have examination conducted by competent counsel rather than blathering senators is unknown, but if ignored, will likely turn this into an astoundingly absurd and pointless spectacle, worse even than the hearing held thus far.

In advance of the hearing, wacky rumors, arguments and insinuations are flying. Kavanaugh has denied that it happened, without equivocation. Some Republican senators are questioning whether it would matter in any event, which is being taken as a double-edged conspiracy gambit to cover Kavanaugh in the event his denial fails to save the day. And, indeed, it appears that progressive forces are determined to undermine the validity of any denial.

Judge Kavanaugh has flatly denied any wrongdoing. “I did not do this back in high school or at any time,” he said in a statement.

This is the sort of denial that an innocent man would offer. It is also increasingly the modus operandi in the age of Donald Trump, regardless of the accusations at hand: Don’t engage with the specifics, just deny, deny, deny.

Brett Kavanaugh isn’t Donald Trump. He wasn’t when he was on the D.C. Circuit and he isn’t now, despite the facile assumption that Trump’s nominating him to the Supreme Court somehow makes him Trump’s political lackey. Nonetheless, Kavanaugh’s explicit denial, in the course of a sentence, morphs into Trump’s modus operandi. It’s not that Kavanaugh somehow uttered his denial wrong, but that the denial “that an innocent man would offer” no longer suffices. If not, then there is nothing left for an innocent man to do.

Michelle Goldberg, fulfilling her contractual duty to express the view of the #MeToo woman, gets it.

Obviously, I believe Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who says that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school while his friend Mark Judge watched and, at moments, egged him on. I believe her when she says that Kavanaugh, who she says was drunk, held her down, covered her mouth when she tried to scream, and ground against her while attempting to pull her clothes off. I believe her when she says this incident haunted her all her life.

Goldberg has yet to hear Ford say a word, whether in her direct statement of her allegations or in response to challenge, but so what? Goldberg, like every person blinded by emotions, knows what she believes, and will believe it regardless. She believes Ford. She doesn’t know Ford. She’s never heard Ford. She lacks any knowledge of any aspect of this beyond what someone has reported, yet she believes.

But what of Kavanaugh’s denial?

Kavanaugh denies the allegation unequivocally; on Monday he said he’s willing to rebut it before the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Judge, who wrote a memoir of his teenage alcoholism, has veered between denying the incident and saying he doesn’t recall it.) But it’s a sign of how credible Blasey seems that, since this story broke, much of the public debate has been less about whether her accusations are true than whether they are relevant.

While it’s unclear that Goldberg is correct that the public debate has been “less about whether her accusations are true,” as her reality revolves around her feels and her bubble, there is an exceptionally good reason for that being the case: no rational person can decide credibility without first hearing the evidence. Sure, Goldberg can, and does, but no rational person can do so.

That’s not to say one can’t believe whatever one wants to believe, from space aliens to the moon is made of green cheese, and the New York Times editorial page has made clear that there is nothing short of Ford collapsing at the table and admitting she fabricated her story that will change its mind. And even that might not suffice, given how she’s oppressed by the patriarchy and no doubt suffers PTSD from the trauma and can’t be expected to withstand the harsh doubts cast at her.

This game plan flows directly from the top, where President Trump has consistently met a growing list of allegations of sexual misconduct with combative denials. At last count, more than 15 women have claimed to have been harassed or abused by Mr. Trump in the years before his presidency. He has attacked some of his accusers individually. Some he has claimed never to have met. But he maintains that they are all, without exception, liars.

Denial is no longer denial. It’s a game plan, and it “flows directly from the top,” where the strings of puppet Kavanaugh are pulled by Trump. There is nothing, therefore, that Kavanaugh can say, then. There is no path to be taken if, as he claims, it never happened. To deny is to be tainted by Trump.

This is obviously the “head you win, tails I lose” vision of denial. There is no possibility of Kavanaugh being truthful and innocent of the accusations against him. While Goldberg, at least, is honest enough to proclaim that she’s made up her mind to believe the accuser despite the absence of any legitimate basis to determine credibility, the editorial board has been far trickier. They don’t concede their bias, but rather build a rationalization around denial that makes it impossible for an innocent person to deny guilt.

There are far too many ridiculous claims, some tangential, some orthogonal, some facially irrelevant to anyone who follow concepts of basic logic, flowing in both directions, to taint what will come at the reopened hearing for the purpose of maintaining the prejudice of the desired outcome at the expense of the actual testimony, the evidence.

Will Ford’s allegations be credible, persuasive, compelling? At this point, no one can say. We have to wait until it happens, until we hear her words, see her demeanor, and then, and only then, make as fair a judgment as to her credibility as possible.

Will Kavanaugh’s denial overcome them, should there be something to overcome? Any modestly fair-minded person would await his testimony as well. After all, if something didn’t happen, then there’s nothing more to be said about it than it didn’t happen. There is no addressing details of an event that never occurred.

But in advance, the New York Times has done its best to construct a progressive paradigm, built on the foundation of Trump, that will render Kavanaugh’s denial worthless. Once the denial of an accused can be dismissed as part of the nefarious game plan, there is nothing left to say. They could have stood up for the notion of hearing the testimony and then deciding, but they instead chose a pre-emptive attack to argue that a denial is meaningless. If denial is just a variant of guilt, then guilt it must be.