If you only read one thing today, I urge you to read The New Yorker magazine's hit job on Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh.

The accuser is a Yale Law School graduate named Deborah Ramirez, who knew Kavanaugh at Yale. This should jump out at you:

[Ramirez] was at first hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident.

In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty.

After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.

Ramirez is now calling for the F.B.I. to investigate Kavanaugh’s role in the incident. “I would think an F.B.I. investigation would be warranted,” she said.

Got that? Ramirez didn't know if Kavanaugh was involved in a vulgar incident in law school, but it just took "accessing her memories" to be willing to lodge a life- and career- destroying allegation (to New Yorker scribes Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer). Can a man be ruined on something like this?

Jazz Show of Hot Air points out problems with the New Yorker's story is:

You can click through for the sordid details yourself, but the recounting of a drunken frat party isn’t where the real action is in this tale. The epicenter of this political earthquake should be in the complete lack of any confirmation of the claims and the circumstances of the alleged victim coming forward. First of all, she admits that she was nearly blackout drunk when these events supposedly transpired. Then, much like Ford’s story, a group of people who supposedly witnessed the assault were all contacted and not one of them could confirm that anything like this ever took place. (Is any of this sounding familiar yet?)

Near the bottom of a story on the state of the Kavanaugh nomination, the New York Times noted:

The Times had interviewed several dozen people over the past week in an attempt to corroborate her story, and could find no one with firsthand knowledge. Ms. Ramirez herself contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.

Charles C. W. Cooke of National Review also points out failings in The New Yorker's "grossly irresponsible" story.

None of this apparently bothers The New Yorker's Jane Mayer.

But it should bother those of us who still adhere to the old-fashioned notion that innuendo and unsubstantiated accusations of the most colorful nature must not be the final word in an attempt to destroy a life or career–or a Supreme Court nomination.