658: The Unhappy Deciders
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. Remember when the news was boring, when politics was boring? That happened, right? I'm not imagining that. You were there. I was there. That happened in our lives. I miss it. I didn't appreciate what a good thing it was when we had it. I don't know about you, but me, I spent a full week obsessively reading about Judge Kavanaugh and watching videos online and calling people to discuss it. And I know this is just daily life in our totally divided country these days, but can I say for me, again, for me, of all the moments we've had these last few years, where Red America and Blue America look at the exact same event and come to radically different conclusions, to me, this one feels the worst. I think, because the original hearing itself with Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh, the testimony was just so long, like it was so many hours, and then both witnesses were so emotionally raw, that even watching it was emotional, it was upsetting. And then since that hearing, we've had this week of waiting for the FBI report, which held us all for a week in that same state of agitation and disbelief, Republican disbelief of the Democrats, Democrats disbelieve of the Republicans. But even in moments like this one, there are people who haven't picked a side. And incredibly, sometimes those people are the ones who have to decide. I mean, they have to cast a vote in the United States Senate, and it does not seem fun for them. Today, on our show, we have somebody in that situation in our first act, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. In our second act, we leave Washington behind, we have somebody who's literally deciding on a man's life or death, with no real experience or understanding of how to do it. Both those people, having to make these huge decisions, they are not comfortable at all. From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life, I'm Eric Glass, stay with us. Hi, Glenn, Judge. So Senator Jeff Flake was one of the central players in the drama on Capitol Hill this last week. Turn on the TV, and you'd see his tortured face. He dragged his decisions down to the wire over and over. He was undecided, then seemed like a no on Kavanaugh, then was a yes, then was let's wait a week. There was Jeff Flake who made the Senate wait for a new FBI investigation, then he was a yes again. A producer, Zoe Chase has spent a lot of time with Jeff Flake over the last year. You may remember the hour-long episode she did recording him for months as he tried to pass some kind of dakabil. And she was with him in the days before and after the Kavanaugh hearing, watching what he was going through, and talking to him about how he made his choices. Here's Zoe. The first thing I want to talk about is the elevator, okay? It's a big story of how Jeff Flake changed his mind because two women accosted him on an elevator.
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