Broken government
For a while now, our government has been a broken one.
Some would call it tribal, what with Democrats and Republicans standing up exclusively for their own party.
In voting for Judge Kavanaugh along party lines to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court, the Senate has spurred five critical losses for the American people, losses that will do incalculable damage to the integrity and vitality of our democracy.
First: that the FBI did not interview many possible witnesses, including Dr. Blasey-Ford and nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who could testify, suggests that the White House placed strict limits — favorable to the candidate — on the investigation.
This manipulation shatters confidence in our government. The “fix” was in.
Second: Given that Kavanaugh has perjured himself six times in the vetting process, shows that lying works as an aid to get what we want. So what has been lost? Nothing less than lying is bad because truth is the glue that binds us.
Without it, the reliability of our words is questionable. The needle on the lying meter has just moved more to the right. Truth, where art thou?
Third: the “#Me Too” movement is being undermined.
Once again, we are being shown that men of power — see Trump making fun of Dr. Ford — will try to make women who have been sexually abused think twice before coming forward.
In his rebuttal of Ford last week, Kavanaugh used the Clarence Thomas playbook in the method used against Anita Hill in 1991: be loud, bombastic, self-pitying, with a key phrase such as “A high tech lynching” by Thomas, and “Advise and consent to search and destroy” by Kavanaugh.
Fourth: the reputation of the FBI as an institution with integrity has been compromised. Why? Because it has allowed itself to be used by the White House. Where has FBI Director Wray been in all of this?
Fifth: the reputation of the Supreme Court has again been tarnished. Once a bastion of integrity, it now has two members accused of sexual misconduct, and is fast becoming a political body. To whom shall we turn?
Our government is no longer broken. It is now shattered. The overall consequence of the machinations of the Senate Judiciary Committee is a loss of confidence in our government.
We are now so divided that we are on the verge of a civil war of words, hopefully not guns. Let us hope that Truth will win out. Gerard Brooker
Bethel