One of the dubious advantages of a Supreme Court nomination battle is how it brings into the open some of the vicious, ideological arguments that are normally hidden by shame and discretion. That has certainly been true on the right, with some figures demonstrating a callousness toward the charge of attempted rape that would presumably change if their own children were even remotely threatened. On different issues, this has been a revealing moment on the left as well. Asked this past weekend by CNN’s Jake Tapper if Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh deserves a presumption of innocence, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, offered a curious response. She argued that Kavanaugh’s denial of sexual misconduct is less credible because “he has an ideological agenda that’s very outcome-driven, and I can sit here and talk to you about some of the cases that exemplify his, in my view, inability to be fair in the cases that come before him.” Hirono added: “He very much is against women’s reproductive choice. ... So there are so many indications of his own lack of credibility.”

With the Brett Kavanaugh hearings – and possibly a collective nervous breakdown – approaching like a Category 4 hurricane, I humbly offer a media user’s guide to the week ahead.

Americans can be forgiven for thinking that everything involved in Supreme Court nominations – all the institutions, traditions, principles, procedures, solemn oaths and columned buildings – are merely a cover, a disguise for the will to power. Where there is no authority, all that remains is a contest of power.

Negotiators reached a tentative agreement Saturday for the Senate Judiciary Committee to hear testimony Thursday from Christine Blasey Ford, the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault from decades ago, according to two people briefed on the matter.

Every chip in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s pile has been shoved into the center of the table. His high-stakes gamble for conservative control of the Supreme Court may be decided in the coming week.

I served as director of President Barack Obama’s presidential personnel office and oversaw hundreds of appointments across the U.S. government. So I know firsthand that Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley’s claim that “it is not the FBI’s role to investigate” the allegations that Judge Brett Kavanaugh assaulted a woman when they were in high school is downright false. The FBI, which would already have performed an extensive background check on Kavanaugh in connection with his nomination to the Supreme Court, can pick up its investigation and check into the issues that the woman accusing Kavanaugh of assault has raised more quickly, more effectively and more sensitively than untrained Senate committee staffers can. Such an FBI investigation should certainly come before Christine Ford Blasey is subjected to questioning from the Senate or its staff members – not only because that’s what Ford has requested but because it’s only fair for senators to question her (or Kavanaugh) with the additional information that the FBI’s work would surely yield, and because it gets us closer to the truth.

It is difficult to comment on an unfolding news story, but this one demands it. It is hard to write about someone you know and like, especially concerning matters of character. But sometimes there is little choice. In the case of Brett Kavanaugh vs. Christine Blasey Ford, the moral issues are not fuzzy or unclear. It is seriously wrong even for a teenager to force himself on a woman in a drunken stupor – if it happened. It is seriously wrong for a Supreme Court nominee to lie about his past failures – if he did. It is seriously wrong to make false, inflammatory accusations – if she has.

Donald Trump would quash such dissent as was heard at the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. But America is still free, and the people will be heard.