gracchusdixit

Despite unprecedented popular opposition to his nomination as well as deplorable views on everything from the reproductive rights of women to the unfettered powers of the presidency, Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s latest pick for the Supreme Court,  was well on his way to confirmation, until he encountered what one tone-deaf Republican Senator called a “hiccup”.  That “hiccup” was a professor of psychology from Palo Alto, California, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who stepped forward to accuse Kavanaugh of attempted rape, when they were students at two exclusive prep schools in Washington.  Ford was soon joined by another accuser, who alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself in her presence at a drunken party during their undergraduate years at Yale.

Since the day the first of these allegations surfaced, there has been a mad scramble by Republicans to save Kavanaugh’s nomination, both by manipulating the approval process and by attempting to discredit his accusers.  Their opening gambit was to attack both the accusers and the Democrats who support them of a “last-minute”attempt to derail the nomination timetable for so-called “political” purposes.  This line of attack quickly collapsed, because it was so transparently hypocritical.  The timetable for confirming Brett Kavanaugh was itself entirely political and completely arbitrary.  Republicans are rushing to put Kavanaugh on the bench by the time the Supreme Court reconvenes in October, so that he can advance their hideous ideological agenda, which includes overturning Roe v. Wade, rolling back civil rights, and, above all else, protecting Donald Trump from the investigation into his nefarious Russian connections.

When this first line of attack didn’t work, Republicans tried to undermine the stories of the two accusers, arguing, in the case of Dr. Ford, that her allegation against Kavanaugh was a case of “mistaken identity”.  An elaborate theory was cobbled together by a Republican operative to pin the attempted rape on one of Kavanaugh’s prep school classmates.   This attack collapsed no less quickly than the first, and the operative who cooked it up has taken a “leave of absence” from bogus think-tank where he worked.  

Running out of other options, Republicans tried to make the case that Kavanaugh’s accusers are part of a left-wing conspiracy.  Unfortunately for them, the only “proof” they were able to offer was a donation made by one of the women to Bernie Sanders and the fact that the other woman is a registered Democrat.  According to this sort of logic, only Trump-supporting registered Republicans are capable of honest testimony, a notion that is both absurd and insulting.

Having failed to discredit the motives of Kavanaugh’s accusers or to undermine their stories, Republicans were left with their old stand-by’s:  to claim that these women are (if you will pardon the crude expressions) either “nuts” or “sluts”.   We have already heard rumblings of the “nut” argument from the octogenarian, increasingly dotty Senior Senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch, who, without having seen or heard from Christine Ford, pronounced her to be “mixed up”.  The “slut” argument may yet come, since it was deployed with such malicious effect against Anita Hill 27 years ago, during the confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas.  During those hearings, it was suggested that Hill suffered from “erotomania,” a bogus psychological malady, which supposedly causes libidinous women to project their sexual fantasies onto innocent and unsuspecting men.

If Republicans propose to go down this dirty road once again, they will have to be far more careful, risking a backlash from female voters across the land, who are rightly sick and tired of having their most terrible personal experiences dismissed as hysterical fantasies or harmless pranks by “boys who will be boys”.  Several less-than-discreet Republicans have already stepped into this trap and have been pummeled in the press.

In the end, Republicans are left with only one, even remotely viable, stratagem to save the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh—the assertion that he is entitled to “due process” and must be “presumed innocent unless proved guilty”.  In theory at least, this allows Republicans to have their cake and eat it.  They can pretend to listen “respectfully” to Kavanaugh’s accusers and if their accusations cannot be “proved,” they can go on to confirm Trump’s nominee with unctuously sincere smiles on their faces, claiming that justice and “due process” were served.  

You can already hear how this is going to play out by listening to the duplicitous words of Lindsey Graham, the Senior Senator from South Carolina, who just hours ago said the following:  “What am I supposed to do, go ahead and ruin this guy’s life based on an accusation?”

Apart from the fact that Lindsey Graham seems already to have made up his mind, without having heard a word from the accusers, the rhetorical question he poses and the political calculations behind it are utterly specious.

To begin with, Brett Kavanaugh’s life is not about to be “ruined”.  He is no doubt feeling both frustration and pique, because what he assumed to be his birthright is now being questioned by two impertinent and contumacious women.  The fact remains that, if he is not confirmed, he will continue to serve as a high-ranking federal judge and will no doubt spend many well-lubricated evenings at his country club in the exclusive Washington enclave of Chevy Chase, grumbling about the injustices he has suffered to an appreciative audience of similarly disgruntled men.

More to the point, and far more consequentially, nomination hearings are not legal proceedings, let alone criminal or civil trials.  Nor is Brett Kavanaugh a defendant in a courtroom, entitled to due process.  He does not face conviction, imprisonment, or even a fine.  He and his accusers are not legal adversaries, bound by the rules of litigation.  Indeed, the concepts of “due process” and “the presumption of innocence” simply do not apply, and attempts by Republicans to suggest otherwise are little more than a political charade.

Brett Kavanaugh is nothing more than a job applicant, the only difference being that he is seeking one of the highest jobs in the land.  Just as employers are under no obligation to “presume” that would-be employees are qualified for the jobs they seek, so, too, neither the United States Senate nor the American people are under any obligation to “presume” that Brett Kavanaugh is entitled to sit on the Supreme Court.   It is not up to Kavanaugh’s accusers to “prove” their allegations.  It is up to Brett Kavanaugh to prove that, in the face of these allegations, he is worthy of the job he seeks.  Thus far, neither he nor his Republican sponsors have succeeded in making that case.