It all comes down to believability
WASHINGTON – She was polite and deferential as she testified about a terrifying assault in high school by a boy she knew. He was angry and combative as he denied he was the one involved.
A fierce battle over whether to confirm federal Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court will depend on who is believed.
Christine Blasey Ford, 51, a California professor, faced a hushed hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee as she spoke of the sound of her attacker’s laughter 36 years ago, the fear that he would inadvertently kill her as he smothered her screams for help, the claustrophobia that followed and made her insist on having a second front door at her home even now.
In an outraged rebuttal, Kavanaugh, 53, categorically denied assaulting her or any other woman and accused Democrats of an orchestrated attempt at character assassination. “This confirmation process has become a national dis- grace,” he told the committee in a nearshout. “You have replaced ‘ advise and consent’ with ‘search and destroy.’ ”
He battled back tears when he said his 10-year-old daughter suggested they should include “the woman” in their evening prayers.
It was uncertain whether that would succeed in holding the votes of GOP senators – without Democratic support, he can afford to lose only one Republican. It also remains to be seen whether the aftershocks of the most dramatic congressional hearing in a generation will be felt in the midterm elections 40 days away.
The long, strange day could have been a movie rather than a cramped hearing on the second floor of the Senate Dirksen Office Building.
Ford’s testimony was wrenching and weird, in that Washington way. It was wrenching because her terror still seemed fresh as she told about being pushed into a bedroom and assaulted; she is 51, but she seemed at times like that 15-year-old again. In sympathetic questioning by the 10 Democratic senators, she said she was absolutely certain Kavanaugh was the one who attacked her.
It was also weird because the Republican senators, all male and concerned about the optics, allotted their time to an Arizona sex crimes prosecutor, Rachel Mitchell. Through methodical questioning, she found discrepancies in the details of Ford’s story, asking who paid for her lawyers and the lie detector test she took and underscoring what she couldn’t remember – the address of the house where she said the attack happened and the date and how she got home afterward.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., asked Ford what she remembered.
“The stairwell, the living room, the bedroom, the bed on the right side of the room ... the bathroom in close proximity, the laughter, the uproarious laughter and the multiple attempts to escape and the final ability to do so,” she replied, struggling to keep her composure.
The echoes of the Clarence ThomasAnita Hill hearings 27 years ago were unmistakable and repeated – from the questions about why Ford didn’t report the alleged offense at the time to Kava- naugh’s outraged response to the accusations about his behavior. Thomas, who finally won confirmation to the Supreme Court, called the attacks on him “a high-tech lynching.” Kavanaugh called the process he faced “a circus.”
The intervening quarter-century and the #MeToo movement made this difference: In 1991, polls showed Americans were inclined to believe Thomas. Before Thursday’s hearings, Americans were inclined to say they weren’t sure whom to believe, and of those with an opinion, more believed her.
Ford was persuasive in part because she seemed so ordinary. She wasn’t slick or glib or political. Her blond hair kept falling in her face. She seemed eager to accommodate the prosecutor hired to question her.
Kavanaugh was more emotional, close to distraught at times as he described the cost to his reputation and his family. He treated some of the questions from Democratic senators with defiance and contempt.
He dodged persistent questions about whether he thought an FBI investigation should be reopened.
As in 1991, the question is: Whom do you believe?