And my blog returns after a long absence! The spirit of the blog remains as it was before – an opportunity to discuss politics from different points of view with an emphasis on respecting the people in the discussion regardless of their views. I have been playing with ideas on the direction I want to take it going forward and plan to get back to sharing regularly.
Today I jump back in with the story that has been consuming me – partially for some time, and extensively today. The post I had been hoping to write before the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing is now rendered basically irrelevant. After watching most of Ford’s testimony, parts of Kavanaugh’s, and following on Twitter and various news sites throughout the day I have much to say and it is not nearly as charitable to all parties as it would have been yesterday.
I must begin with Christine Blasey Ford. She has earned a tremendous amount of respect from me. I couldn’t help thinking as I watched this that this could be any woman I know who was going about her life and then found that a traumatic event from her past was suddenly relevant to a highly-charged national issue. She has bravely faced the issue head-on while enduring incomprehensible vitriol from those who don’t like what she is bringing up. Her story fits everything I would expect of a credible allegation and I can’t imagine anyone who could watch her testimony and see a political motivation in what she has done.
This doesn’t inherently mean the allegation is true. Indeed, after a morning where the Twitterverse indicated that Republicans were not feeling good about things, Brett Kavanaugh came out swinging. And I agree with the popular assessment from left and right that his anger at what he and his family went through is genuine. I certainly feel awful for his wife and daughters and what they have endured. And it seemed that he and the committee turned the tide for the Republican side and rallied support back in his favor.
He certainly addressed the substance of the allegations to the extent that he can. But rather than parsing which of their accounts of the details is more believable, let’s keep a few things in mind.
- Motivation
- If you follow the chain of events that led to Ford being in that seat, her motivations seem to pretty genuinely be about sharing information she felt needed to be shared. I can’t make any sense of her coming forward as she did for other reasons. If anyone reading this can provide an alternate interpretation consistent with her words and actions I’d be interested in hearing it.
- Kavanaugh on the other hand is a man close to reaching the professional pinnacle for a judge who finds himself on the defensive about an old allegation. The motivations to deny the allegation are many. Again, that doesn’t mean he is lying or that her version is accurate, but it is a factor in any assessment.
- And being upset at your reputation being ruined doesn’t make you innocent of the allegations. Indeed, most of the men who have faced consequences for their sexual misconduct continue to express indignation at the attacks on their character even when the evidence is overwhelming. So I fail to see how his deep and genuine anger at what has happened over the past 2 weeks has any bearing on an assessment of his guilt or innocence.
- Evidence
- I continually am reading that there is no corroboration for her claims. Sen. Bob Corker said he is a yes vote because she didn’t present any evidence to back her statement. Let that sink in for a moment – the alleged victim of an assault is the one responsible for providing evidence to support her memories and personal experience?
- Yes, many years have passed and that creates a lesser likelihood of verifying information. And yes, the Judiciary Committee has conducted an investigation, and this not a criminal proceeding. But if it was important for Ford and Kavanaugh to have a chance to speak directly and to be cross-examined, why aren’t the other potential witnesses as well? Why aren’t their stories being probed more deeply than by a partisan committee? And once again, I’ll ask any readers for answers if anyone can provide a justification for why Mark Judge wasn’t called. The only explanations that I can come up with are either purely political or because the committee doesn’t care to get to the truth.
- Timing
- Building on the last point, I can understand a senator at this point agonizing over whether to reject Kavanaugh based on the degree of evidence received (I don’t agree, but I can at least understand the argument). I can’t understand the justification that further exploration should not be done before a vote. It seems to me that and FBI investigation is the right path, but I am certainly open to any other objective and thorough process that would attempt to probe deeper into the details with others who may have information.
- So what is the reason for avoiding this if not purely political? The handling of the Merrick Garland nomination made it clear that the Senate does not view a Supreme Court seat remaining open for some time is a problem. Yet in this case Sen. Mitch McConnell is committed to ‘plowing right through’.
- Smear campaign
- This seems to be real defense – this whole thing is some plot orchestrated by the Democrats to get him. Now, setting aside for a moment the politics of the situation, what this argument really does is dismiss Ford (and Ramirez and Swetnick) as irrelevant to the question of their own traumatic experiences. How can you square this argument with what these women have claimed? If the argument is that they are flat-out lying as part of a Democratic conspiracy, an investigation needs to get to the bottom of that conspiracy. What exactly is the case being made if not that? I need help here understanding it. And Sen. Lindsay Graham is definitely not the person who is going to make that clear.
- This is a separate question from whether the Democrats have behaved honorably throughout this confirmation process and in how Dr. Ford’s name became public. I’ll just say this – the federal judiciary has been becoming an increasingly partisan battleground over the years, likely tracing back to the Bork confirmation hearings from my read of the history. The treatment of Merrick Garland brought things to a boiling point. Both Republicans and Democrats have made clear that having the right to appoint judges is one of the ultimate acts of politics today and things are only going to get worse from both sides. This has major implications for the health of our democracy that go well beyond the scope of this post.
- Relevance
- Kavanaugh continually emphasized that this allegation was dropped on him, that he worked his butt off to get where he is, that people say things in a high school yearbook that don’t mean much, that previous investigations of him found nothing, that he has many positive references. Let’s be clear – those things have nothing at all to do with whether or not he did indeed assault her. Nothing.
- The fact that he has left no wiggle room in his denial means that the question of how much to care about the behavior of a 17 year old boy in the judgment of a 53 year old man is also irrelevant. If he did indeed commit this assault, even if he does not remember it at all (my personal opinion is that this is the most likely scenario), it is absolutely disqualifying that he would so forcefully deny it.
Ultimately, what are we to make of all of this? I am still processing it all (and being very ready for sleep doesn’t help matters!) and don’t have great answers. There are definitely serious questions about the degree of escalating partisanship in this country and this event will leave deep scars on our democracy for a long time to come. And we can hardly afford a greater divide than we already have.
Brett Kavanaugh had the chance to handle this differently. His response could have been focused on Dr. Ford and acknowledging what she has gone through and being willing to provide space for the truth to come out while respecting her experience. He and others claim to value her and what she has gone through, but the escalating rhetoric treats her as a pawn in a Democratic game rather than as independent human being with agency and the ability to make her own choices and deal with her own life. He did not have to admit to doing anything that he does not remember doing to do this, but simply to acknowledge that getting to truth of what happened to her that night would have been worth the delay that a thorough investigation would have created. This could have turned this into an opportunity for healing some of our divisions.
But to me this is really about women and anyone who is marginalized in various ways in our society. The clear message being sent here by plowing through with Kavanaugh’s confirmation is that this country does not give a shit about what Dr. Ford experienced as a scared 15 year old girl and the impact on the rest of her life, and in trying to make that right. And by extension, that the experiences of any women are irrelevant in the face of forces that are deemed more important – the right to appoint a judge who believes what you believe, or the suffering a powerful man faces when his name is dragged through the mud to face consequences for his behavior, the political value in confirming a judge before the midterms and the new session, and so many more. That is nothing new in our country as know that the concerns of the powerful dwarf those of the less powerful, but it is time we acknowledge the many ways this plays out and all commit to doing something about it.
In thinking about this more just now, I had a really important realization. Kavanaugh, Graham, and many others have been making strong claims about the Democratic smear campaign against Kavanaugh. What exactly is their evidence? Are they holding themselves to the same standard they are holding Ford?
Their “evidence” is that Ford’s letter must’ve leaked from somewhere. If that’s the inciting indecent of a smear campaign, then the Democrats suck at smear campaigns, because you don’t start them at the 11th hour, you start them early so that the narrative can build. That’s just basic media strategy.
A more likely explanation is tenacious journalism. Remember, The New Yorker piece points out that they weren’t the only ones chasing the Debbie Ramirez allegation (and the NY Times confirmed that was true by publishing a non-story about how they failed to get that scoop). What that tells you is that investigative reporters had been looking into allegations of sexual misconduct for most of the summer.
If you’re a reporter on that assignment, a good place to start is by interviewing classmates at Georgetown Prep and Yale. The high school investigation hits an obvious roadblock (all boys school), so you need to ask the logical question: what schools intersected with Georgetown prep? It’s actually a pretty narrow field to work through, and from the New Yorker’s detailed account of how they broke this story, it seems to have worked. (Also, and I think this is important to remember, Kavanaugh attended an elite high school and an elite college. Reporters at outlets like The New Yorker and Washington Post would likely have deep contacts in those alumnae networks, making it easier to do the basic job of journalism, which is picking up the phone and asking someone you sort of know through someone else you sort of know if they can put you in touch with so-and-so.)
Of course, the Ford story is a little different from the Ramirez story. We don’t know how that story was broken. But we do know that Ford contacted the Washington Post’s anonymous tip line. That’s a big signal that tells reporters where to start looking. But it’s also possible that someone else in Kavanaugh’s high school social circle made an anonymous tip, too. Or maybe a reporter knew about Mark Judge’s book (he is a known figure to political reporters) and decided to run down the Bart O’Kavanaugh lead!
The point is, these allegations didn’t come out of nowhere. We know about them because of journalists. And there’s a lot of evidence that those journalists had multiple clues that told them where to look. Of course, there’s no way you’re going to hear about the nuts and bolts of journalism from a party that’s spent decades attacking the media, and more recently, the very idea of facts.
Brian,
Thanks for the thoughtful post. A few (but long) comments.
Let’s leave out if the question of whether or not the Democrats have waged a smear campaign. I will admit that both sides “play dirty” at times but that is irrelevant to the issues raised by this case. In my mind there are 3 fundamental issues at stake regardless of why the allegations were made public.
First, The Supreme Court has become an increasingly partisan branch of government. To assume otherwise is foolish. It is not a neutral arbitrator of law. That pretense fully disappeared when Merrick Garland’s confirmation was denied a hearing. Refusal to confirm a well qualified moderate judge because the election might dictate a more conservative judge, that’s partisanship. However, Neil Gorsuch still had the good taste to say he would approach his job in a non partisan manner. As of Thursday’s hearing, we know that Brett Kavanaugh made it clear he is partisan and will be throughout his lifetime term on the bench. While the changing role of the Supreme Court in American life is important, it is not the most important aspect of these hearings.
The second issue is the temperament of Kavanaugh himself. This is a man who is nominated to be one of the 9 highest arbitrators of the law in the United States. I understand (although I don’t agree) with him yelling in anger at being accused of something if he truly didn’t do it. His attitude to Senator Klobucher was downright disrespectful (an possibly sexist.) Would he have tolerated a witness doing that to a prosecutor in his courtroom? But my biggest issue is with him lying and providing misleading testimony. For example, one can argue the relevance of yearbook posts to his role as a judge, but that doesn’t mean he should lie about what they meant. Yes seniors could legally drink when he was in high school, but not when he was a senior. Yes 3 people could not confirm Ford’s story, but they didn’t say it didn’t happen. (I have heard the argument that Bill Clinton lied under oath related to a sexual issue and it didn’t matter then, why should it matter now for a different government official. From my point of view-1 it mattered; there was an impeachment hearing and 2 I thought it was wrong way back then.) My concern is with elevating someone who lies and misleads during a senate hearing to the highest judicial position in the nation.
But the final and most important point in all of this is Christine Blasey Ford and her experience of sexual assault. Her testimony was believable, although it will never be proven. The odds are in her favor that it happened as reported. Research data shows that between 75 and 80% of reported sexual assaults can be confirmed (doesn’t mean that the rest are false, just that they can’t be confirmed.) Survey data also shows that less than 25% of sexual assaults are reported. To me, the experience of Blasey Ford goes beyond the Supreme Court. We have a problem in the US with sexual assault and Ford’s experience is about what we Americans are willing to tolerate culturally.
When do we draw the line and say that the negative sexual experiences of women are worth something and must stop being an acceptable byproduct of having a world with men and women? When do we say that a woman doesn’t have to be “pleasing” (thank you Senator Hatch) a virgin, sober, dressed modestly, calm, smiling, avoids contact with men who are drunk or any of the other multiple excuses we use disbelieve women or to excuse teenage boys and men of this behavior.
Men who have not committed sexual assault (which I believe are the majority of men) should be just as angry as women about this. I learned long ago that I have no way of knowing which men I can truly trust in all situations (#metoo) so I learned that I had 2 choices. One, avoid male contact unless I had other women to protect me, no one was drinking and I knew the men we were with a long long long time, or two, live a bit and take the risk (kind of like driving a car.) But like driving a car, where you always know the cars around you and are thinking of how to react if someone does something stupid, I live with a plan on what to do if a man tries to assault me. It might not save me, but at least I tried. Men, if I see you in a parking lot, I have my keys held so that I can stab you if you get too close. Men, if I date you I am looking for the exit and who in the restaurant looks sympathetic in case you turn out to be a rapist. When I car pool with a male colleague at work, my phone is on and turned to text messages so that if he attacks me I can quickly get help. When I am at a business dinner, I fake how much I am drinking.
Men, think of all of the women in your life-sisters, mothers, daughters, friends-is this how you want them to live? Is it really ok to say “boys will be boys” and men have “locker room talk” and then expect that women will protect men from themselves? Do men really want women thinking that they can’t control their impulses and it is up to women to make them avoid temptation to commit sexual assault? Men, think of all the times in your life you have hung out with, worked with, been alone with a woman and then think what your life would have been like if those women had, unlike me, chosen option one. Is that the world we really want or are we better than that?
If this isn’t the world we want, we need to do something. We need to honestly talk about the world we want. We need to face our darkness and the rush to excuse men who treat women poorly. We need to evaluate the standard we hold men to and our assumption that it is “normal” or men and teen boys to want to force women to have sex. We need to stop blaming women for not stopping men from behaving badly. And, as allegations come forward, publicly or with the women we know, we need to stop and ask, what if she is telling the truth, how can I support her?