AFTER THIS TRAVESTY, VOTE!
Up or down: Time for every senator to take a public stand on kav
IN the 1992 movie “A Few Good Men,” Jack Nicholson’s character, a military commander, unloads on the lowerranking Tom Cruise character with the memorable phrase, “You can’t handle the truth!”
After the appalling hearing in the Senate, Americans can only wish they had the option of handling the truth. They certainly didn’t get that chance Thursday.
“A national disgrace” is what GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah called the shameful scene, and he was being kind. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina scorched the earth by pointing at Democrats and calling their conduct “the most unethical sham since I’ve been in politics.”
Both Brett Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, deserved better. To be pitted like two beasts in a caged fight to the death reduced them to political bloodsport.
Both talked of the terrible toll the showdown is taking on them and their families. Both fought back tears in testimony that was painful to watch — and that resolved nothing.
To judge by her compelling testimony, Ford clearly believes Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in 1982, when they were both in high school.
Yet Kavanaugh was equally compelling in his forceful denial. He was especially angry and emotional at times, practically shouting that “my family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false allegations.”
He also aimed fire at the media — the liberal media — for treating every allegation, including two newer ones, as if they are true just because they are made. He called the attacks revenge for Donald Trump being in the Oval Office instead of Hillary Clinton.
But Kavanaugh kept his composure enough to repeatedly remind Dem inquisitors that the only four people Ford said were at the party 36 years ago, including him, have denied it even took place. One of the four is a lifelong friend of Ford’s and she denied, under oath, ever meeting Kavanaugh or being
at a party with him.
In short, there is no evidence — only an uncorroborated allegation from 1982. Is that really enough to destroy someone’s life and to keep a superbly qualified judge off the nation’s highest court? It shouldn’t be. Sadly, expecting the Senate to fix what it broke isn’t realistic. What it can do, however, and must do is give Kavanaugh a vote. Every senator must take a public stand on the travesty that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and his band of dirty tricksters have foisted on the nation.
If I had a vote, it would be yes for confirmation. Not because I doubt Ford’s integrity, which I don’t. But because I believe Kavanaugh is also being honest — and because he has the better argument on the facts and evidence.
Alas, an up-or-down vote is the one thing Democrats don’t want. Their senators, when they weren’t asking Kavanaugh about drinking or his high school yearbook, exhibited a droning fetish for an FBI investigation.
It would be a debatable point — if they were sincere. What they really want is delay. If they can get confirmation past the midterms and retake the Senate, they would be in control and could deny almost anyone President Trump nominated.
Think of it: if they take the House, they will try to impeach Trump. And in the Senate, they would leave the Supreme Court seat vacant.
And so running out the clock has been their aim since Kavanaugh was nominated by Trump in July. At the very first hearing, they objected to going forward before any questions were asked.
As Graham reminded the nation, Schumer promised to fight Kavanaugh “with everything I have” minutes after Trump’s announcement. Thursday was the ultimate expression of everything. Kangaroo courts are more dignified.
The hearing did produce some new information, especially the fact that Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s office advised Ford to get a lawyer and recommended one she hired, a Democratic activist. This happened all while Feinstein sat on Ford’s initial allegation until the hearings on Kavanaugh were completed.
Imagine it — she had the allegations even as she held a private meeting with Kavanaugh, and never saw fit to mention it to him. Politics doesn’t get much slimier.
That fact triggered much of the anger from Kavanaugh and Republican senators, all of whom felt ambushed.
Yet Republicans were not above playing politics, too. Mindful that their 11 members on the Judiciary panel are all white men, they hired a female sexcrimes prosecutor from Arizona to question Ford instead of the senators.
The prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell, was too methodical for the herky-jerky format of five-minute rounds, and while she poked some holes in Ford’s story, they were tangential and never cast direct doubt on her claim that she was “100 percent” certain Kavanaugh assaulted her.
The GOP can now make up for its mistake by calling a vote. To fail even at that would be to reward character assassination, which means we will get more of it.