Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says Dr. Christine Ford came off as a compelling witness Thursday, but he also says major problems exist with her a account but the Republican-hired counsel failed to ask about them properly.

McCarthy, who is now a contributing editor and columnist at National Review, spoke after Ford's testimony and before Kavanaugh's impassioned rebuttal.  McCarthy says sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell did not make good use of her time.

"Mitchell seemed to think she was conducting a deposition and gathering a bunch of information that could be used later on.  In a proceeding like this, you have to go right to the point," said McCarthy.

He says there are many holes in Ford's story understands Republicans deferring to Mitchell since Democrats were ready to pounce with their narrative of eleven white men harassing an alleged sexual assault victim, but he says Mitchell was more focused on being kind than getting the facts.

"She need a ride home somebody.  Yet, she can't remember how she got to the party.  She can't remember how she got back.  She doesn't remember what she said to the first person she saw who would have been the first friendly person there to give her a ride home after she had been through this terrible incident.

"None of those aspects of her story make sense.  And the way that a lawyer would normally handle that at a trial or at a hearing would be to ask her pointed, leading questions about that.  Instead what Mitchell did was ask these sort of open-ended questions.  We got a lot about the topography of Montgomery County and the etiology of PTSD, but we didn't find out a lot about what went on in that room," said McCarthy.

McCarthy says the consequences of not challenging Ford's story are significant.

"If you get to the end, and you haven't laid a glove on her version of events, then what you're asking these wobbly senators to do is confirm somebody who there's good reason to believe attempted to commit a rape," said McCarthy.