Why I Believe Christine Blasey Ford
After a contentious judicial confirmation hearing; the Republican Party ‘doubles-down’ on misogyny and patriarchy.
After weeks of partisan bickering over ‘process’ and posturing; the full U.S. Senate eventually confirmed Judge Brett Kavanaugh (50–48) as the 114th Supreme Court Justice, a mere two-days following an ugly confirmation hearing. The hearing had to be reopened to deal with serious allegations of sexual improprieties by Kavanaugh as a young student with a youthful drinking problem in the summer of 1982, and later as a college student at Yale University. Only one Republican voted against his confirmation, and only one Democrat voted for it.
Before I detail my rationale for believing the compelling, credible testimony of Judge Kavanaugh’s accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford; I must weigh in on the rather incredible testimony of Brett Kavanaugh, who began his defense of his nomination with a loud, bitter attack on all those accusing him as being part of some “Left Wing conspiracy,” fueled by revenge from Clinton supporters, angry at her defeat in the 2016 presidential election.
Although he (later) wrote an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal, apologizing for his harsh tone and intemperate language; the damage to his judicial integrity was already done, casting him as someone incapable of sober temperament and judicial fairness — especially given his threat of unspecified judicial revenge against his opponents, declaring defiantly; “What goes around, comes around.”
In my view, his opening remarks (alone), and his evasive sworn testimony to the Judiciary Committee, were disqualifying enough for promotion to the highest court in the land. Despite the claims of President Trump (himself credibly accused of past sexual predation); the unhinged diatribes of Sen. Lindsey Graham; and a shallow, disbelieving assessment by Maine Senator, Susan Collins. A self-proclaimed champion for women’s rights who believed Dr. Ford’s horrific account of having been sexually assaulted just as she described, but concluded that Christine’s ID of him was faulty and that her attacker could not possibly have been the now esteemed federal judge.
You know. The guy being “rammed through” by her old-misogynist-ruled political party, determined to reverse decades of legal precedent protecting women’s reproductive rights. And, Collins got all dressed up and alerted the media to deliver the ‘kill shot’ for Kavanaugh, replete with two other dour looking Republican women senators, staged at not-their-desks, just behind the senator, facing the cameras for the illusion of public female support.
Indeed, nearly every public statement on the matter that the “esteemed judge” uttered reeked of petulance, privilege, and partisan victimhood; an evasion of the central question about his younger years and the company he kept. He sought instead to imprint a fantasy version in the minds of the American public of his (and other highly successful men’s) personal history as incapable of having ever committed such an offense.
Just as Bill Cosby’s defenders initially tried to use and parlay his public image as “America’s Dad” into some dispositive proof that his accusers were merely out to destroy him for financial gain, rather than in a quest for moral justice.
Rather than being honest about his underage drinking to excess, and likely memory lapses while under the influence of drink (and peer pressure from other similarly horny, privileged young men); Kavanaugh promoted the unsupported fantasy that he was ONLY a serious, studious, hard-working student athlete. But one now unwilling to embrace the FBI ‘investigation’ (which proved merely a Trump-managed fraud in the end), nor to request a polygraph examination, as was taken and passed by his accuser. If he was as “innocent” as he repeatedly and vehemently proclaimed, then why was he so reluctant to prove it— by all means available — in the face of such powerful and damning charges, and a lifelong question mark now left hanging over his very fitness for office?
He was a young man who — by his telling —was emotionally incapable of the type of drunken partying or boorish behavior that could ever possibly spin out of control,…or otherwise end up in a clumsily attempted criminal sexual assault. Even to the clumsy extent now, of offering an wholly unbelievable denial of the actual coded meaning of purely sexual terms and derision used in his own yearbook writings during that drunken period of his life!
“I liked beer” is hardly a convincing defense of any youthful misconduct he has probably long forgotten — as merely a hazy blur in an otherwise commendable professional life. Instead, it reeks of a certain ‘frat boy’ arrogance and privilege of wealthy excess. He was either a sloppy, abusive “blackout” drunk then; a bad liar now; or both!
His actions and prepared remarks outrage at even being questioned were more emblematic of an underlying consciousness of guilt over the actual abusive young man he once was,…and an unconvincing denial of the personal pain he caused to a young Christine Blasey (Ford) during a night of heavy drinking — and quite likely, the pain of other young women victims, like Ms. Ramirez.
The other thing that seems sadly certain in this case, is that the absence of any eyewitness corroboration was due to close male friends of the accused (Mark Judge, et al.) unwilling to step forward more forcefully, likely due to an unwillingness to acknowledge their own personal failings during their adolescence, including preying on young women,…gotten drunk for the purpose of easy, compromised sexual relations; with a peer pressure certitude of a lack of any forceful resistance, nor any legal retribution by their victims afterwards.
Indeed, these young men counted on the shame of their victims, to keep silent — and even compliant — in the face of peer derision if they dared talk about their ordeal to classmates or their parents. “What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep” was their faculty-approved ‘get-out-of-trouble card!’
The narrative — told some three-decades later — by some of the women, brave enough to recount the all boy, Catholic School excesses, appears far more believable than Brett Kavanaugh’s self-serving depiction of the totality of his life as being that of a virtual “choir boy.” Methinks he doth protest too much, and much too angrily — in casting ALL such attacks (or even questions) about his character and honesty as sinister hyper-partisan hackery; almost as if the high honor of a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land was his birthright, rather than a reward and a promotion to higher office, subject to deeper scrutiny before ever being bestowed upon him.
In all of this, Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing conduct (and his Fox News interview) merely compounded the anguish of his young, now adult victim(s), one of whom — Dr. Ford — credibly, positively identified him at great personal pain in the reliving, and with absolutely no pecuniary or political motives whatsoever! A brave, articulate, professional woman soberly recounting her 15-year-old self’s terror,…at being mauled — with a strong young male athlete’s hand clasp tightly over her mouth, to muffle her screams for help. The same story she had told her husband before they were married, and to her therapist some six-years before Judge Kavanaugh was ever even considered for the Supreme Court!
As someone who himself endured repeated, periodic sexual abuse (from age eight to age eleven) at the hands of an older, teenage male relative; I found Dr. Ford’s detailed account of the assault powerful, credible, and convincing in her pained retelling of those key elements that impacted and terrorized her most. The absence of any full-throated corroboration, as to the specific date and location, did not dull her memory of the actual event. This rings ever so true, based on my own personal experience and searing memory of abuse.
And so; now we are in the aftermath of those flawed, partisan, incomplete hearings and the fait accompli of Justice Kavanaugh’s narrow confirmation and swearing in as an associate justice to the court of last legal resort in America. Sadly, for America, the current Republican Party and its elderly, White, male leadership has deigned to gleefully celebrate their victory, as some vindication of male power and privilege — cynically claiming Kavanaugh was erroneously branded as guilty in the court of public opinion and, thereby, his ordeal represents an ongoing, sinister threat to all men everywhere.
Indeed,…it was the bad faith conduct of the Republican Party — in forcing through a badly tainted judicial nominee over the will of the American people, and despite credible accounts of sexual misconduct — that leaves an ugly stain on our already badly divided body politic.
A dark stain that will haunt the High Court (and Justice Kavanaugh) for decades to come. To conclude that a now successful adult, but one-time “choir boy” — such as Brett M. Kavanaugh — could never have been a drunken teenage boy given to criminal sexual exploitation defies the facts of the matter; the credible, uncompromised testimony of his accuser; and the bitter logic of the hyper-sexual male-dominated times in which we currently live. More importantly (and tragically), it does a grave disservice to all American women and, indeed, to all surviving victims of sexual abuse.