20 September 2018 — 1738 mdt
All crazy on the Kavanaugh front
Christine Blasey Ford, who accused U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of trying to forcibly disrobe her when she was 15 and he was 17, says she will not testify before the senate’s judiciary committee on Monday. Through her attorney, she said she’s open to testifying later in the week, provided acceptable limits to the questioning can be established.
That’s reasonable, but politically naive. As Slate’s Jim Newell noted, the Republicans, wanting her not to testify, have laid a trap:
The rushed timetable and omissions of additional witnesses and outside investigation were features, not bugs, of the GOP’s plan, which was to bait Ford’s lawyer and Democrats into yet another procedural outcry. It is not the first time Republicans have successfully used this tactic since Kavanaugh’s nomination. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley requested just enough of Kavanaugh’s records from his tenure in the Bush administration to argue that he was being “fair” but left out just enough to send Democrats crying foul on a months long paper chase that distracted from the main argument that Kavanaugh would be bad for everything that Democrats care about.
If Ford testifies, the details of her story emerge, forcing the Republicans to (a) pause while her accusations are investigated, or (b) hold a confirmation vote that looks like a political steamrolling, accepting the attendant consequences. If she doesn’t testify, the Republicans will argue it was “he said, she said,” that she lacked the courage of her convictions, that in the name of justice her story should be ignored.
Ford’s been getting bad advice, some of it her own. First, she believed that her accusation that a supreme court nominee sexually assaulted her could be withheld from public scrutiny. Now she believes, possibly on the advice of her attorney, that she can control the conditions of her testimony before the senate committee hearing the nomination. Both beliefs are unrealistic and someone with with political savvy should have told her so (perhaps someone did, and she rejected that wisdom).
Are her accusations credible? Is her story true? I don’t know. Contemporary feminist doctrine holds that in these matters we must always “believe women.” Taken literally, that means an accusation is its own proof, and suffices to convict and punish the accused, who is presumed guilty (and who cannot be proven innocent). If taken figuratively, it means we must take the woman’s accusation seriously and not treat her as a gold-digging trollop, but that the person she accuses is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Her claim must trigger a serious investigation. I believe we must take the woman seriously.
Note. Ford, apparently on the advice of her attorney, submitted to a polygraph examination. Her examiner concluded she was not being deceptive. The problem with the polygraph — also known as a “lie detector” — is believing it. I’m not going to dignify the polygraph by calling it junk science. It’s not science. It’s just junk, and junk that stinks like fresh road apples on a hot afternoon. The only lie detector that’s even semi-reliable is your mother — and Ford apparently successfully lied to her mother about the alleged assault.
Even if Ford’s accusation proves to be false, I would reject Kavanaugh. His intelligence is considerable, as is his experience. But he strikes me as an authoritarian ideologue who’s not likely to grow on the bench. That’s not the kind of person who should receive a lifetime appointment to our nation’s highest court.
Will he be confirmed? Probably. The Republicans have the votes, and seem determined to lock down a right wing majority on the supreme court regardless of the short term political consequences of doing so.