[Centaur]

Totally agree. As a practicing trial lawyer, this is the only way to handle a sympathetic "victim". You get her comfortable and trusting and gently peel away. She's doing a great job.
With this type of witness, you get more [f]lies with honey than vinegar.

[Ohioan]

With almost any type of witness. Too many people are too easily impressed with dramatic histrionics. They are usually a mistake when questioning a witness. Closing arguments, once all the testimony is in, perhaps; but not in the gathering process.

[Alberta's Child]

Lots of pearl-clutchers here on FR think Mitchell's job is to humiliate Ford to the point where she blows her brains out right there on national television.

That would be a disaster -- both literally and politically.

If Mark's observations are accurate, then I think there's another subtle strategy at work here. The GOP objective isn't just to discredit Ford for political purposes, but to expose so many inconsistencies in her various claims (to Feinstein, to the Washington Post, in her "lie detector test," in her opening statement, and under questioning) that the FBI could not possibly investigate anything related to these allegations.

The end result here isn't as much a discredited witness as it is a non-existent "allegation."