Kavanaugh Hearing Conclusion

    

Tarred and Feathered

I did not watch last week’s Senate confirmation hearing that featured the dramatic confrontation between Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford who has accused him of sexually molesting her 36 years ago when she was fifteen years old at a house party. Fortunately, important matters kept me out of the house since I had no desire to listen to what has turned into a national disgrace. 

Nevertheless, on the way home my wife and I turned on the car radio right in the middle of Judge Kavanaugh’s spirited and emotional defense. Actually, I thought something might have been wrong with the reception since it seemed to keep breaking up. Only later, did I discover that it was Kavanaugh himself breaking up in tears as he defended himself from the charges.

I thought that Kavanaugh did an excellent job although it seemed obvious that nothing he said would have had any impact on the Democrat senators on the committee whose minds were made up long ago. One commentator remarked that how you felt about Roe v. Wade determined how you felt about Kavanaugh’s guilt or innocence. 

I did not hear Christine Blasey Ford present her charges but have read about her testimony and the subsequent charges that have come forward. It seems to me that it is not just a question about who is lying and who is telling the truth. It might also be instructive to consider the consequences of their versions of the truth.

I believe that it would have been the easy way out for Judge Kavanaugh to admit that as a drunken teenager he groped a fifteen-year-old and threw her on a bed at a wild house party. He did admit that he liked to drink beer, and it seems that drunken house parties were common in the high school set in which he traveled. He could even have claimed that given his semi-inebriated state, he had no recollection of the incident.

He could then have gone on to say that if foolish and shameful things he did while as a teenager were going to be held against him and disqualify him for office, then many people now in office, even in the Senate, might have to resign their positions. 

But Kavanaugh did not say that. Rather he proclaimed his innocence and argued that it was his behavior and career as an adult that should determine his qualifications to serve on the Supreme Court. Incredibly, the impassioned defense of his innocence only made his detractors more certain of his guilt. Whether Kavanaugh is confirmed or not, his reputation has been tarred for life.

On the other hand, Christine Blasey Ford’s unsubstantiated accusation has made her a national hero in the eyes of half the population. The very fact that her story cannot be substantiated also means that it can never be proved that she was lying. 

Actually, it would not matter to many of her supporters if Dr. Ford was lying or not. They firmly believe that lying and false accusations are just one weapon that they can employ if their cause is just. They can shout down and disrespect opponents whose ideas they cannot abide.

In the recent hearings was it just a senior moment that led Senator Diane Feinstein to wait six weeks to ask the FBI to investigate Dr. Ford’s letter? Why did one of Feinstein’s staffers leak the letter after Dr. Ford had requested confidentiality? Why did demonstrators seek to disrupt the hearings in the first place? Why did Yale Law students travel to Washington to protest, in effect, against due process and the right of accused to be presumed innocent until proven guilty? 

I would not be surprised if Dr. Ford went on to a new position at a more prestigious university. I would also not be surprised if book deals, lecture tours, TV appearances, and a movie are also being proposed. We just have to look at Anita Hill’s rise to fame and position after her accusations against Judge Clarence Thomas years ago. Hill is a darling of the feminist movement while Thomas serves in relative obscurity on the Supreme Court. 

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