I headlined my September 5 commentary: “Kavanaugh’s Confirmation as Justice Will Be as Tainted as Trump’s Election as President.” More to the point, in it I declared that only an act of God could derail his confirmation to the US Supreme Court. Well, this might qualify:
A California psychology professor who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her in high school wants to cooperate with federal lawmakers considering the nomination, but doesn’t want to be part of a Washington ‘bloodletting,’ her attorney said on ‘Good Morning America’ Monday.
Christine Blasey Ford wants to speak to investigators about her allegations, but she doesn’t want to become the next Anita Hill.
(Good Morning America, September 17, 2018)
Clearly, this is not the taint I had in mind, not least because I wrote that commentary before she came forward. But the irony cannot be lost on anyone that, if confirmed, a dark cloud of sexual assault will hover over Kavanaugh’s tenure, just as dark clouds of sexual assaults hover of Trump’s presidency.
That said, Ford saying she does not want to become the next Hill is rather like saying she only wants to be a little pregnant.
Frankly, this psychology professor had to have known that, by triggering this political fight against Kavanaugh, she would become just that. #ReversePsychology?
Of course, Ford has far more going for her today than Hill had back then, most notably the zeitgeist of reckoning the #MeToo movement represents.
More directly, though, she shared the trauma of this alleged event with her therapist years ago. And she passed an FBI-administered polygraph just last month. These alone make her credibility on the merits virtually unimpeachable.
Meanwhile, Kavanaugh got 65 women to sign a letter saying that’s not the Brett they knew back in the 1980s, during communal hookups between his all-boys school and their all-girls school in Bethesda, Maryland. But their testimony has one obvious limitation, namely none of them can say today what happened behind closed doors back then between Ford and “stumbling-drunk” Kavanaugh.
So we await the inevitable she-said, he-said hearing, during which she will play Hill and he will play Thomas.
For the record, I believe her. But his drunken hijinks in high school (alone) should not be disqualifying. In fact, I would have given him a pass if
- he had issued a statement apologizing for the trauma he never realized he caused when he tried to have drunken sex with her at a party in high school
- no other women come out of the woodwork to accuse him of similar, more recent assaults.
But he denied it:
I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.
(The New York Times, September 17, 2018)
Incidentally, the shame (if not the guilt) is on him if he was too drunk to remember. But that does not mean it did not happen. Ford says there was another stumbling-drunk boy in the room when Kavanaugh (or both) attempted to rape her. Unsurprisingly, “HeToo” denied it in that same Times report:
‘It never happened,’ [Mark Judge] said. ‘I never saw anything like what was described.’
Mind you, Judge (with his central-casting name for any court scandal) has every incentive to do so. Indeed, their denials are all too understandable.
Lest we forget, 16 women credibly accused Trump of sexual assault. He denied each one and got elected president of the United States. Only one woman is credibly accusing Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Therefore, it’s reasonable for him (and Trump) to think he can deny this one and get confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States..
This means that the issue is not what he did back then as a drunken teenager; it’s his credibility today as a sober judge. And, having watched the initial hearing on his confirmation, I know many Democratic senators had just cause to question his credibility even before Ford came forward.
In fact, some accused him of perjury for trying to conceal the nakedly partisan role he played on Special Counsel Ken Starr’s team and in George W. Bush’s White House.
Therefore, the only question now is whether this allegation proves a tipping point for two or more Republican senators. For it will take them breaking ranks to torpedo Kavanaugh’s confirmation, emulating the way Senator John McCain famously did to torpedo Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare.
As it happens, several senators have every incentive to do just that:
- The six female Republicans in the Senate, most notably Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska: If they vote for Kavanaugh, in this age of #MeToo, they risk being pilloried as no better than the all-male, all-white Republican senators who chose to believe Clarence Thomas over Anita Hill.
- The retiring male Republicans in the Senate, most notably Bob Corker of Tennessee and Jeff Flake of Arizona: They can finally back up their frequent criticisms of this mendacious, pussy-grabbing president by denying him this pick for the Supreme Court.
The wild card, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina: He spent much of the past year making a mockery of his celebrated friendship with McCain by kissing up to Trump – a man McCain clearly felt was making a mockery of the office. Graham could use this vote not only to emulate McCain but also to seal his belated reversion to the days when he himself thought Trump was a certifiable “kook.” Not to mention that, with Mueller’s noose tightening around Trump’s presidency, Graham clearly has no reason to continue kissing his ass.- The X factor: I suspect more than a few Republican senators regret the partisan way Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority leader, refused for nine months to even hold hearings for Obama’s “consensus nominee”, Merrick Garland. They might see this Ford accusation as a reason/opportunity to break Washington’s partisan fever and make amends.
Given all the above, there’s every reason to believe Kavanaugh’s confirmation is toast. And I am willing to bet good money that it is. It only remains to be seen if he withdraws his nomination before the Senate denies his confirmation.
NOTE: Republicans are accusing Democrats of using Ford’s accusation to derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation at the last minute. But the following MeToo facts belie their accusation: Ford asked to remain anonymous, and Democrats had to honor that. It was she who decided on Sunday to finally come forward.
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