I watched all of Dr. Christine Blassy Ford's testimony and found it to be compelling, disturbing, and ultimately completely credible. She made no effort at avoiding or deflecting the questions she was asked, at times self-correcting when she realized that something she said was not entirely accurate. She also mentioned several times that she would be better able to nail down the date if someone could tell her when Mark Judge worked at the local supermarket - something he admits to doing in one of his books, but something no one has been willing to check on so far. This becomes important further down...
I don't think I've ever seen a witness at a Congressional hearing be this forthcoming. As a research psychologist, she was able to switch gears at one point and give a quick lesson on how, why and where the brain retains certain memories. As a number of former prosecutors said later, she became her own expert witness. I don't see any reason not to believe she was telling the truth as she remembered it - I believe her.
When it was Kavanaugh's turn, I was only able to watch most of his opening rant. I thought as he railed on and on about how the Dems were in a conspiracy to defeat his nomination - with no evidence - that he was getting ready to withdraw his name. When he didn't, it became apparent that this nominee was: a) totally partisan; b) felt entitled to the position, and c) acting in a manner that no judge should ever act. To say that he was "not judicial" would be an understatement. We expect our judges to behave a certain way and an unhinged rant in front of a Congressional committee simply doesn't make the cut. His behavior there alone should disqualify him from holding a lifetime seat on our highest Court.
He railed about how his reputation was ruined, how his family had to fear for their lives, how this had totally destroyed his life - and my first thought was, when did YOU become the victim here? What about Dr. Ford and HER family? She is essentially in hiding, having to move her family at least twice and hire security because of the death threats- doesn't HER situation factor into the equation? What individual would purposely lie about something that puts her and her family at risk?
And then my cable service went belly-up - we had a complete outage in my area, and I had no Internet access at all until the next day so I missed all the fun. From what I could see of the clips I was able to find the next day, Kavanaugh was belligerent and dismissive of and insulting to the Dem Senators who questioned him, constantly trying to shift the narrative, and less than honest with some of his answers. In short, he was the complete opposite of Dr. Ford who several times stumbled over herself to make sure she was being helpful to the committee.
Kavanaugh's attitude seemed to be - this nomination is mine and was promised to me, how dare you try to take it away from me? Entitlement, pure and simple. And there can be no question that, if confirmed, he will carry a bias onto SCOTUS. The Right has often complained about "activist judges", and here we have them desperately trying to seat a justice who will have a clear bias he DEMONSTRATED in his confirmation hearings.
And then there's the question of his truthfullness under oath. There were already questions raised about that earlier in his confirmation hearings. From what I could see from the clips I watched, his responses to the questions about what things in his yearbook page meant were so disingenuous that they were almost laughable. He attempted to redefine words and phrases that, at the time, had a clear meaning. And we're supposed to believe him.
The prosecutor hired by the GOP to shield them from the optics of 11 old white men questioning a woman did a horrible job. In her defense, it's impossible to build evidence in 5-minute increments, but even the rabbit hole she chased down about Dr. Ford's anxiety with flying ended badly. She triumphantly brought forward the fact that Dr. Ford once did work for a company in Australia, only to be told that the company was headquartered in Australia and Dr. Ford had never been there, instead performing the contracted work right here in the US. I thought the mantra was that an attorney never asks a question they don't already know the answer to - apparently not. Exit rabbit hole...
What that prosecutor did do was accidentally find a potential smoking gun - a July 1 entry in Kavanaugh's calendar which names all of the individuals Dr. Ford remembers having been at the incident in question. The GOP quickly shut that down, preventing the prosecutor from asking any more questions AT ALL. It should be pointed out that this happened at the beginning of July and Judge worked at the supermarket in August according to his own writing - which is basically what Dr. Ford said when she asked for his employment records.
Now that the FBI is involved, thanks to the efforts of GOP Senator Jeff Flake (who is already receiving death threats), perhaps we'll get a better understanding of who Kavanaugh really is. My hope is that one of the things they'll focus on is that July 1 calendar entry. The FBI is not going to make a recommendation - they will simply collect evidence and present it to the Senate. HOWEVER, if in the course of their investigation they find evidence of perjury or other crimes, they can begin a criminal investigation unrelated to the background check - and they don't need Trump's approval to do that.
Strap in - this ain't over yet... |
