Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
Kavanaugh Supreme Court Nomination Hits Trouble
Hard-right conservative jurist Brett Kavanaugh appeared to be set for a partisan vote confirming his appointment to the Supreme Court. The GOP was ignoring most norms in holding hearings quickly, scheduling a vote shortly after the hearings and preparing to ram the nomination through the Senate, even if Vice President Mike Pence was needed to break a tie vote. And then, accusations that he had committed sexual assault while in high school emerged. His accuser is a university professor whose therapist has notes about the incident dating from 2012. The Democrats want to slow down the confirmation vote, but the Republicans seem determined to go ahead.
The allegations are that, while a minor in high school, Mr. Kavanaugh was at a house party in Maryland. He was drunk, and he and another male student forced a female classmate into a bedroom. While the other student watched, Mr. Kavanaugh allegedly groped the girl and tried to remove her clothing. She tried to scream, he covered her mouth, and it took the intervention of the voyeur physically jumping on them to allow the victim to escape.
The defenders of the judge say a number of things. First, Mr. Kavanaugh denies is ever happened. So, it's her word against his. Second, even if it did happen, it was 40 years ago. Should people in their 50s be held responsible for the actions they took when they were underage? Third, the Democrats knew about these allegations as early as July, and how very convenient they emerge on the eve of the vote.
This journal believes Mr. Kavanaugh should not be confirmed because he lied to Congress during his confirmation hearings when he was appointed to the DC Circuit Court. These allegations should be unnecessary to the decision. A perjurer has no business on the bench. However, perjury is not taken seriously by the Republicans in Congress so long as it is their guy in the witness seat.
So, one returns to the alleged sexual assault. The voyeur has stated that it never happened and that Mr. Kavanaugh never did such things, as per the denial the nominee issued over the week-end. As Mandy Rice-Davis said during the Profumo Affair, "He would say that, wouldn't he?" The witness also has some culpability here. If the attack occurred, he did nothing at first. His cowardice in failing to act may affect his life.
Weighing against this are the notes of the therapist. It is entirely possible that the victim made the story up. However, why make it up six years before the appointment is made to the Supreme Court? It doesn't pass the smell test.
Perpetrators of this kind of crime (and it was a crime) often forget about it, but the victims almost never do. That is more than adequate explanation of the different memories. To him, it meant almost nothing at all. Her life was changed by it.
It is time for a thought experiment. Suppose that the incident occurred. Suppose further that the victim took her allegations to the police, and suppose further that the police arrested the perpetrator. The odds on a conviction would be pretty good, as the witness would have flipped to keep his own record clean. And so, Mr. Kavanaugh would have been a convicted felon, albeit a juvenile at the time. He might have completed college despite that, and perhaps, might have earned a law degree. He could have joined a decent firm. Yet, there is no way that he could have been appointed to the bench.
It all comes down to this. He did it, as the noted from the therapist underscore. That he didn't face trial changes nothing. Had he been prosecuted, he would have been found unfit to serve as a Supreme Court justice. Is he now fit because no one punished him?
This journal still expects the Senate to ram the nomination through. However, one is less certain that the vote will happen before the victim gets to testify.
© Copyright 2018 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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