#IBelieveHer.
I totally do.
However……and it pains me greatly to say this….. that after watching and listening to the entire four hour hearing, I have to admit it’s possible Dr. Christine Blasey Ford may have misremembered what happened that night. Sadly, her testimony didn’t convince enough senators to stop his nomination, and honestly, she didn’t fully convince me either.
I was already in her corner. I couldn’t wait to watch the hearings and see her “stick it” to Kavanaugh. I naively assumed this would put an end to his possible nomination just like I naively believed there was no way in hell Trump would ever be elected president. Anymore than seeing pigs fly.
I asked myself, “Since most sexual assaults have no witnesses, what is it she could possibly say to “prove” that it was indeed Kavanaugh that sexually assaulted her that night?” Since it was a classic “he said/she said”, what evidence could there be 35 years later? In other words, how do you prove the unprovable??
I believe Dr. Ford was incredibly brave to have gotten up there with the whole world watching, retelling her story of being sexually attacked at the tender age of 17. I have a 19 year old daughter and anyone with a daughter had to be as sick to their stomach as I was listening to her. She had no reason to lie. It’s terribly horrific this happened to her, and I believe it probably was Kavanaugh. He had much to lose and she had nothing to gain. In and of itself, it seemed a slam-dunk.
She admitted she was “terrified” to testify, and it showed. Her mousy demeanor and child-pitched voice was quite a contrast to the loud and obnoxious rants and the squished, red and sloppy facial expressions (what was up with the tongue thing and the sniffling??) of Kavanaugh. And by the way, just because you are louder doesn’t mean you’re “more right”. But I’m afraid his loudness and her lack of it is may have been the cause for her lack of credibility.
I cringed hearing the horrendous details of what Dr. Ford recalled that night, and watching Kavanaugh come unglued in response. I don’t feel bad that my gut reaction when he began to cry was to emit a hearty guffaw. I actually did LOL (laugh out loud). I was like, “oh jeez seriously?! He’s CRYING???!!!” But unfortunately, I think his tears and her lack of them was what ultimately discredited her and in return gave him credence.
Kavanaugh reminded me of OJ Simpson–if you tell yourself a lie over and over, and then tell everyone else that lie, you begin to believe it yourself until that version is all you know. I believe Kavanaugh believes he was telling the truth. I believe that he believes he doesn’t even remember the party and was too drunk to remember anything else that happened. He paints a picture of himself as this academic and scholar and hard-worker so how can the two co-exist??? Of course they can. People are neither all good or all bad. Some of the biggest partiers on college campuses are also some of the most accomplished. (see https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/CollegeFactSheet/Collegefactsheet.pdf and also https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2017/02/22/health/teens-smoking-drinking-study/index.html) He believes himself to be someone who could never do such a thing (and sober, I’m guessing he wouldn’t) so his fervent cries of denial feel true to him. And he has much to lose–not only the job of a lifetime but the respect of his wife and family and friends. I’d become emotional too if I was in his shoes.
First of all, I believe that Kavanaugh blatantly lied about never having been black-out drunk to the point of passing out or not-remembering things he’d done. He knew he had to lie about that because if he’d admitted it, to many on Dr. Ford’s side, it would prove was indeed drunk (as she’d accused him of being the night of the attack). I get it. He had to lie. To admit it would’ve been his linchpin.
Anyone who drinks has done and said things they don’t remember. Once after a birthday celebration I commented to a friend, “why didn’t I ever get a piece of my cake?” and I was shown a video of me being sung “Happy Birthday” by my group of friends and then taking a bite of a slice of said cake. Oops. So for Kavanaugh to admit he “liked beer”, “had a weak stomach”, admitted “I’ve probably drank too many beers” and was described by his friends as “quite a drinker” and yet deny he’d never blacked out is just a blatant lie. How squeaky clean does he really expect us to believe he is??? This denial alone for me called into question everything he said. I also think Mark Judge was there and he too was too drunk to remember what happened. I believe Dr. Ford believes Kavanaugh was the one who attacked her that night. Maybe it was indeed Kavanaugh that (allegedly) attacked her.
I remember when the allegations first came out; I said to a friend about the therapist notes back in 2012, “That will prove she’s telling the truth once and for all!” because if she’d said it was Kavanaugh back then, it would be in writing.
It wasn’t. If she’d named him in therapy wouldn’t the therapist have written it down??
She said she told her husband it was “him”–Kavanaugh. Unfortunately, this didn’t “prove” it was indeed him. If this was a trial, this would be considered “hearsay”. It’s not evidence.
Alternatively, I was disappointed that Dr. Ford didn’t give a better answer when Sen. Feinstein asked her how she was “so certain” it was Kavanaugh who attacked her. Her response was so incredibly weak. She replied how “as certain as I’m sitting here with you” and then went into some ridiculous diatribe about how the hippocampus records memories. Sorry, to me that’s just not good enough to sit up there and accuse this man and ruin his reputation. I’m not saying he’s innocent–I’m saying, what I wanted to hear was, “OMG he was so cute I had a crush on him so badly and here was my crush trying to rape me!” Something more substantial than how her hippocampus was in good working order. I was extremely disappointed in her response. She did say in her opening statement that she knew him and “he knew me” as they’d both had attended several parties. But in that moment, when Sen. Feinstein asked her directly how she knew “with certainty” it was him, wasn’t this THE moment where she should’ve gotten emotional??? I so wanted to hear something juicy and substantial. I am certain if she’d burst into tears and sobbed, “I looked right at him while he was on top of me and was so frightened I just froze” that he wouldn’t be a Supreme Court Justice today. Kavanaugh was too emotional in his denial of it being him, and she wasn’t emotional enough.
I was squirming in my seat. I yelled at my TV, “ASK HER ABOUT THE LIGHT IN THE ROOM. WAS THERE A LIGHT ON???” Because I’ve been to parties and so have you and we know that it’s not like Sunday brunch at the country club. I’m assuming the lighting was nil or possibly none at all since the boy who pushed her into the bedroom and attacked her probably wanted to get away with it, and how better than to have her not be able to really see his face? Why didn’t anyone ask her that, and why didn’t she offer it up?
I stupidly hoped that her testimony would break him and force him to admit, “I have no recollection of having been at that party nor do I remember having sexually assaulted Dr. Ford, but why would she lie? I believe her. I’m sure I was super drunk and didn’t mean to assault her. I feel horrible I may have done that to her or anyone. I hope she can accept my apology now and allow me to make some sort of restitution to her. And I hope that my record shows I’m deserving of being your servant in the role of Supreme Court Justice.” That did not happen.
But let’s go there…..what if it did??? What if Kavanaugh admitted he “may have sexually attacked her because I was stupid drunk” would anyone give him a chance if he said that?? Am I the only one who wanted to hear that? Am I the only one who would’ve been willing to forgive him and still believe he could be a fair and impartial judge? To me it was so fucking obvious he was lying, and the louder and more snot-faced he got, the more I disbelieved him. How on earth this swayed enough people to believe him over her still baffles me.
Here’s where I get angry.
I have to say that I have come to believe that Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) used Dr. Ford to stall the nomination of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She claims she “wanted to say something sooner” but was “hesitant” because Dr. Ford wanted to remain anonymous. And Dr. Ford said she realized she couldn’t stay anonymous any longer because “reporters were at my door. They found me. It was just a matter of time before they released my name.” I was listening to her testimony thinking, “how did reporters know about her?? Where did they come from???” and that has not been answered yet. Feinstein is accused by the Republicans as having leaked the information, and given how Dr. Ford said, “the only people who had my letter (of allegations) were Feinstein, Democratic California Representative Anna Eshoo and my attorneys”, it’s not outside of possibility that Feinstein did actually leak the information to the press, because no one takes anonymous allegations of any kind seriously. It bothers me greatly that I agree with Republicans that Feinstein used Dr. Ford to stall Kavanaugh’s nomination. It should bother Dr. Ford greatly as well, but again, how the information got leaked will probably never be known. Why do I think Feinstein exposed Dr. Ford? Because she knew it would stop Kavanaugh from becoming nominated, and to the Democrats, that needed to be done by any means possible.
Why would Feinstein and the Democrats stoop to this low?? It’s called Karma baby. This was the Democrats getting their just-desserts in response to Sen. Mitch McConnel’s declaration back in 2016 when then-President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to fill Justice Anton Scalia’s spot that “no Obama nominee would get a hearing or a vote” for nearly a year and that “this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.” This was a shrewd and mean act to prevent a Democratic president from seating a non-conservative to the highest court in the land.
So Feinstein delayed notifying the committee until the 11th hour, knowing full well it would stall the nomination of Kavanaugh, hoping to stall it long enough to have the mid-term elections where (hopefully) the Democrats would win enough seats to stall any future Trump nominees for two years until (hopefully) Trump would not win re-election and instead a Democrat would be the new president.
This is classic dirty politics my friends. (Anyone ever watch, “House of Cards”??) I believe Feinstein and the Democrats are simply using these two people to get back at the Republicans for their stunt back in 2016. And the Republicans are responding like wide-eyed innocents. Give me a break.
Who loses here? The American people. US. YOU AND ME. Because to tell you the truth, as much as I despise Trump (I did not vote for him) I liked Kavanaugh before the allegations came out. I read some of his rulings and listened to some of the interviews with him and he seemed more of a moderate to me. He said he relied heavily on “precedence” and for all Trumps’ inflammatory grandstanding about “if you elect me I will nominate Supreme Court Justices who will overturn Roe v Wade”, I truly felt he wouldn’t allow himself to be Trumps’ puppet. After all, at the most, even if (gulp–God forbid) Trump gets elected for a second term, Kavanaugh’s position as Supreme Court Justice would extend well beyond a single presidency. I’m sure he wanted to become a Justice and therefore allowed Trump and his cronies in the senate to believe he would vote ultra-conservatively, but who knows. He wouldn’t be the first conservative justice to vote liberal (Neil Gorsuch anyone?? See https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2018/04/17/gorsuch-sides-with-liberal-justices-in-supreme-court-immigration-vote/amp/). Also look at the ruling in Obergefell v Hodges (https://www.wsj.com/articles/gay-marriage-is-here-to-stay-even-with-a-conservative-court-1531074136) Whether or not Judge Kavanaugh survives the FBI investigation and gets nominated anyway, he will forever be marked as a sexual predator whether he deserves it or not.
And America was robbed of Merrick Garland’s nomination too. The Constitution allows the sitting president to nominate his/her choices for Supreme Court Justice, and the real break-down is the opposing sides acting like kindergarten bullies. How dare they?? My question to you is, why aren’t you angrier at both political parties?? Something needs to be done. If we can’t get a strong third party to offset these two tyrannical, childish, self-serving political parties, we’re just going to get more of this.
Trump has done the right thing by ordering an FBI investigation of Dr. Ford’s allegations against Judge Kavanaugh, and we may or may not uncover more truth on either side. Time will tell, and they’ve got a week to complete it. Depending on the outcome, I can hear the talking heads right now on Dr. Ford’s side proclaiming they “needed more time” and Kavanaugh’s camp proclaiming “this is a ridiculous waste of time.”
You can all thank Senators Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein for this mess.
Please vote in November.
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