Viewers torn by emotions of hearing
Passions run high, but there’s no consensus
Across the nation on Thursday, Americans grappled with the drama unfolding in the Senate and, though passions ran high, it was hard to find people whose minds had truly been changed.
Echoes of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill abounded, with many recalling that fraught 1991 hearing. And some addressed the momentous nature of the event. “This is history,” said Laura Williams, a law student from Mississippi.
AP journalists around the country talked to citizens to gauge their reactions. Here is some of what they heard:
Tears for Kavanaugh family
Republican strategist Jennifer Jacobs, watching the hearing from her home in San Diego, was struck both by Christine Blasey Ford’s sincerity and Brett Kavanaugh’s depth of emotion.
Both seemed believable, Jacobs said, but she felt convinced toward the end that Kavanaugh was not guilty. “I don’t want to discount that Dr. Ford had something happen to her, but I don’t think it was him,” she said.
As to Kavanaugh’s evident emotion, Jacobs said: “Clearly, this is a compassionate man. He’s not some crazed barbarian. You can’t help but have compassion for him.”
She was especially moved on behalf of Kavanaugh’s wife and children. “I literally was welled up with tears,” she said.
The whole spectacle left her upset for both Ford and Kavanaugh — and for the country. She called it “one of the worst days in American history.”
At Yale, students glued to TVS
The Kavanaugh hearing had students glued to televisions and their phones at Yale University, the Ivy League institution where the U.S. Supreme Court nominee attended college and law school.
As Ford testified, some students gasped aloud, said Alyssa Peterson, a third-year law student from Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
Samantha Peltz, a 26-year-old law student from Chicago, likened Thursday’s hearing to the proceedings years ago involving Thomas and Hill.
“Anita Hill went to this school,”
Peltz said. “We felt she wasn’t given due consideration to her allegations. We want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.”
This is history
At Yeshiva University’s Cardozo School of Law in New York, a hush settled over the school’s student lounge as the proceedings started.
“Everybody wants to watch this. I mean, this is history,” said Laura Williams, a second-year law student from Senatobia, Mississippi.
“I think this is a tremendous step forward for women,” student Jordana Balsam said. “I think this is … going to be what I’m telling my children about, that I know exactly where I was when Dr. Ford gave her testimony.”
But Sam Erlanger, 25, said the proceedings dashed his hopes for a confirmation process that would appraise Kavanaugh’s background and qualifications in an orderly, timely pursuit of truth. “Essentially, they’re using her as a pawn,” Erlanger said.