The
Old Boys Club at the Supreme Court of the United States of America is about to consider
welcoming another Good Old Boy to its ranks. A sexual predator Good Old Boy.
Justice
Clarence Thomas, forever branded as “Long Dong Silver” for his sexual remarks
and unwanted invitations to Anita Hill leading up to the early 1990s, may soon
have company.
If
either Trump or the Scotus candidate doesn’t lose his nerve.
Readers
may recall that during his confirmation hearings, Thomas was also accused of
sexual harassment by Lillian McEwen and by Angela Wright and Sukari Hardnett of
the EEOC, all three of whom were familiar with Thomas’s employment management
of attractive young black women who worked under his supervision: they were
“inspected and auditioned as females.”
Unfortunately,
these accusations were not aired publicly due to the timidity of the Democratic
Senators who sat on the Judiciary Committee.
Let
us remember that Thomas’s response to Anita Hill’s accusations was to label the
Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearings as a “high-tech lynching,” not that there
was anything high-tech about Hill’s testimony or Thomas’s purported conduct.
Thomas
squeaked onto the court, but just barely, much as Brett Kavanaugh hopes to do
in the coming weeks.
But
now Kavanaugh must contend with an accuser who alleges he tried to rape her,
and she has bravely elected to emerge from anonymity to make her accusations
publicly. That courageous soul is California psychology professor Dr. Christine
Blasey Ford, who was 15 years old one fine summer evening back in 1982 when she
went to a party at the home of a private school friend in suburban Maryland,
and drank a bottle of beer. Then two “stumbling drunk” 17-year-olds, entitled buddies
who attended Georgetown Preparatory School—Brett Kavanaugh and his good friend
Mark Judge—corralled Christine “into a bedroom” and locked the door.
They
also turned up the music so that the other teens at the party could not hear
what was occurring, and Kavanaugh “pinned [Ford] to a bed on her back and
groped her over her clothes.” The terrified young girl next experienced
Kavanaugh “grinding his body against hers and clumsily attempting to pull off”
her clothing. He put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream for help.
She thought he would kill her.
Instead
he tried to rape her.
Let
that sink in. The current candidate for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court
did his best to rape a 15-year-old when he was 17. He attempted to use his
superior strength with the aid of a male friend to force a child to summit to
him sexually.
Young
Christine escaped only because the other boy “jumped on top of them,” enabling Ford
to break free and lock herself into a nearby bathroom, safe from further
attack. The two visibly drunk boys then sauntered downstairs to rejoin the
party, and Ford fled the house and walked home, stunned and traumatized.
Ford
referred to the incident only generally until she began couples therapy with
her husband six years ago, at which time she described the events as a “rape
attempt.” Her husband Russell Ford confirmed that during the therapy his wife
had mentioned Kavanaugh’s name. Mr. Ford also remembered that Christine Ford
“voiced concern that Kavanaugh,” already a federal appeals court judge, “might
one day be nominated to the Supreme Court.”
Lo
and behold, that day has arrived, and the lady has elected to publicly out
herself in a gesture that has inevitably put her in the crosshairs of thousands
of people who hope to tell her a thing or two as Judge Kavanaugh waits to
advance through his much anticipated confirmation for the Supreme Court.
This
after Christine passed a polygraph test administered by a former FBI agent. Not
a bad recommendation for ascertaining the truth of the matter.
And
Ranking Member Senator Diane Feinstein of the Senate Judiciary Committee has
referred the matter to the FBI for further investigation, although the referral
is absent an official imprimatur from the Oval Office, which absence could
impede the progress and credibility of the investigation. Trump refuses to affirm
the Rule of Law, hardly a surprise to most of the country.
Whoa
. . . . Brett, my boy, you really ought to withdraw your name to prevent any
further besmirching. Your reputation has already taken a couple of direct hits
during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s televised hearings in that
(1) you attempted to prevent a pregnant illegal immigrant from
obtaining an abortion, using a twisted and erroneous interpretation of previous
Supreme Court rulings and Texas law, and
(2) your earlier writings indicate that you believe some legal
scholars don’t consider Roe v. Wade
to be precedent or settled law.
You
seem to think that coaching your two daughters’ basketball teams is sufficient
to prove your bona fides in the art
of counter-misogyny. (I beg to differ.)
These
matters land Kavanaugh directly in the path of the #MeToo movement, which took
off like a roman candle over a year ago and has already caused the resignation
of Ninth Circuit Appeals Court Judge Alex Kozinski, one of Kavanaugh’s mentors
who hired young Brett as a law clerk and helped our gallant young judge also
obtain a clerking job with retired Scotus Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Kennedy,
we recall, just resigned from the high court in time to give our youngster
Brett the opportunity to replace him.
Sound
fishy? We think so. Smells to high heaven.
So
apparently do some of the generally unconcerned Republican Senators such as
Jeff Flake (AZ), Lisa Murkowski (AK), and Susan Collins (ME), who as of
yesterday favor the open testimony of both the accuser and the accused before
the Senate Judiciary Committee now scheduled to reconvene Monday, September 24th
(regardless of whether the FBI has had a genuine opportunity to investigate the
matter and recommend the inclusion of additional witnesses).
When
Kavanaugh learned—to his great surprise—about the numerous allegations against Judge
Kozinski, our boy was shocked! shocked! to hear about the touching,
inappropriate sexual comments, and forced viewings of pornography by female
employees in Kozinski’s chambers. Why Kavanaugh had been unaware of these
goings on when he was employed in those chambers was never explained as he testified
recently to the Judiciary Committee, i.e.:
“When [the allegations] became public,
the first thought I had was no one should be subjected to sexual harassment in
the workplace ever—including in the judiciary, especially in the judiciary.”
Further,
said Kavanaugh, the allegations against Kozinksi “are part of a broader
national issue,” and “there should be a better system for reporting harassment
in the workplace.”
Kavanaugh
added that he supported Chief Justice John Roberts’ “establishment of a working
group to tackle issues with sexual harassment in the judiciary.”
“I’m
interested in doing everything I can to assist those efforts to make those
workplaces safe,” said our golden boy.
That
he tried his drunken best to rape a teenager when he was an entitled
preparatory school student is apparently not part of the discussion.
But
it will now become part of the reopened hearings before the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and maybe, just maybe, Brett Baby will have the good sense or humility
to withdraw his nomination and slink back to the D.C. Court of Appeals to
rejoin the far better qualified and morally fit Chief Judge Merrick Garland.
Although
I wouldn’t count on it.
After
all, think of all the topics about which Judge Kavanaugh lied or prevaricated
during the Judiciary Committee hearings that have just taken place:
(1) whether during his employment in
the George W. Bush administration, Kavanaugh was in receipt of stolen material
from numerous emails, draft letters and memos laying out the legal arguments
Democrats were going to make regarding Bush’s judicial nominees;
(2) whether in 2003 Kavanaugh
coordinated meetings with and about Charles Pickering, who had been nominated
for a judgeship on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, by drafting remarks,
letters to people on the Hill, and at least one op-ed for then-White House counsel
Alberto Gonzales about Pickering, advised Gonzales on Pickering strategy, and
much more;
(3) whether in 2006 the good judge
received documents stolen from the Senate Judiciary Committee during his
confirmation hearings for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals; and
(4) whether Trump has “consulted more
widely, or talked with more people from more backgrounds, to seek input about a
Supreme Court nomination” than any other president (dear reader, try not to
choke).
Hence,
depending upon the outcome of the new hearings on the Kavanaugh nomination and
the Senate’s confirmation vote, come the first Monday in October or thereafter,
Brett and Clarence may well form the nucleus of their extra-special club for
Justices on the #MeToo list of offenders. For life.
[Updated
September 18]
