"He said, she said" and "I believe her" are both wrong. [View all]

Both sides are oversimplifying the situation. Just because a witness is uncorroborated and lacks physical evidence, it doesn't mean you can't act on their information. Of course you can. If you are hiring a babysitter and your friend tells you that their kid saw the sitter drinking booze on the job, you can refuse to hire the sitter. Not only that, you should refuse.

But isn't the sitter entitled to the presumption of innocence? If the kid's story can't be corroborated, doesn't that mean you are forced to hire the sitter in order to be fair? One person's word against the other means you have no actionable information?

Of course not. That's ridiculous. It seems ridiculous, because it is ridiculous.

So the people who mouth "he said, she said" when talking about uncorroborated accusations of sexual assault are wrong at best. Yet we hear that all the time, and that hugely wrong idea is often taken for granted as right, even common sense. People who think they are being neutral will say (incorrectly), "it's a he said, she said situation." But it's not neutral. It's a gross misstatement about our prerogative to actually think about the full context of the case and judge accordingly.

On the other hand, no, of course you don't have to "believe" the accuser. You get to take into account a whole bunch of things, including the accuser's character and past history. You get to take into account motive. There's no presumption of truth on the part of the accuser, but you can choose to believe or disbelieve them to whatever degree you feel the available evidence supports. And you can then act on that choice.

So Ford, having no motive to lie and charging Kavanaugh with something it was highly unlikely for her to have forgotten, was easily believable enough to keep Kavanaugh off the court. The only reason that argument fails is because it isn't used. Instead, one side says it's "he said, she said" hands down, while the other says "we believe her (and not him) completely no matter what." Both sides think the other is unreasonable, and both sides are right about that. That's one way the action taken ends up being a simple party line vote. Thinking failed.