Clueless White Men

When I wrote about the circus the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings had turned into, this was before he had been accused of attempted rape by a credible victim. The process has now become perhaps the capstone of the #MeToo movement. After all, if Garrison Keillor can get fired for sexual harassment, surely this would bar someone from taking a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court. Did anyone learn anything from the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill imbroglio seventeen years ago?

Apparently not. Donald Trump held in his bile until he finally vomited a tweet that suggests that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who claims Kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were in high school, couldn't possibly be telling the truth or otherwise she would have filed a police report. Jesus, how dense can Trump be? About as dense as anything that exists in the universe, I guess. For years we men have heard that it is difficult for women to report  sexual assault, because--well, look at how Ford is being treated now. We get comments from idiots and jerks all over, from Orrin Hatch saying he thinks she is "mixed up," to Franklin Graham, who is supposedly a man of God, stating that attempted rape is not a crime. "He showed enough respect for her not to finish," he said. I wish some very large man would reenact that scene in Deliverance with him, showing him enough respect "not to finish."

The question is, are the white men (all white men--no Republican woman has ever served on the Judiciary committee, which goes back to 1816, and certainly no black man) this obtuse, or merely pretending to be, because at their very core they are evil people who want to whitewash a disqualifying incident in order to get their man on the Court. I suspect it's the latter. Even Chuck Grassley, the octogenarian Iowan who seems like that great-uncle you don't like, must know that sexual harassment is a thing, and women don't like it. For these men to try to ram Kavanaugh onto the bench without an FBI investigation (which did take place with Anita Hill) is criminal. Lindsey Graham, who I suspect is being blackmailed by Putin-Trump because of his turnaround (Graham has always been rumored to be gay, maybe Putin has pictures) declared that approving Kavanaugh is a pressing concern. Interesting, because the Republicans left a seat open for almost a year following the death of Antonin Scalia because it was too soon before an election.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Susan Collins, the Republican who most often bucks the tide, has sold her soul and indicated that she believes Kavanaugh. I think the tactic of the left trying to extort her (vote against Cavanaugh or we'll support your opponent) backfired, because it only made Collins indignant. This gives Kavanaugh 50 votes, which is all he needs because Mike Pence breaks the tie. But if Lisa Murkowski, who has not stated an opinion yet, votes against her, we only need one heroic Republican vote. I haven't heard anything from Jeff Flake, who damned Trump so much he was forced into retirement; he has nothing to lose by casting a vote against Kavanaugh, and would be admired across the country. The same with Bob Corker, who also had a bad brush with Trump.

Kavanaugh is already the least popular Supreme Court candidate since polling has existed, which is saying a lot considering Robert Bork and Thomas. If he does get approved, it will be right before mid-terms, and that will have to cost Republicans some women votes. And, since it's clear that Kavanaugh committed perjury, if the Democrats take the House back they could immediately impeach him. He'd be acquitted, because it takes two-thirds of the Senate to convict, but it would be a meaningful action.

We don't know yet whether Dr. Ford will testify in front of the committee. Right now she is instigating an FBI investigation not of Kavanaugh's drunken frat boy behavior, but of the death threats she's receiving. Who are these people who immediately send out death threats? Degenerates, certainly. Are they the same people who threaten David Hogg, or Colin Kaepernick? Do they sit by the phone or computer just waiting for someone to dare threaten their antediluvian phipsophy?