Brett Kavanaugh Deserves Better

Oh look.

I’ve already been warned by someone on Facebook that I shouldn’t “go there on the Ford thing. Unless something like this has happened to you.”

What this person - a woman, natch - suggests is that only those who’ve experienced a sexual assault should be permitted to weigh in on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court.

Nice try, my friend, but you don’t get to silence folks who refuse to automatically believe every female who accuses a man of aggression.

This is MY Supreme Court, too, and I get to have an opinion. 

Here it is: The timing of this vague, vicious allegation is clearly designed to torpedo the nomination of Kavanaugh on the eve of his confirmation vote. These charges could have been addressed months ago. Had that happened, these marinated memories would likely have been discredited - or validated - by now. Instead, America’s sore losers saved them until the 11th hour in a desperate attempt to keep Kavanaugh off the court.

Christine Blasey Ford claims an inebriated 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh groped and tried to disrobe her at an underage preppie drinking party somewhere in Maryland, about 36 years ago. She’s hazy on most of the details except the identity of her attacker. Ford told no one about this "assault” for decades, was mum during his confirmation to the federal bench (also a life-time appointment) but finally decided to speak up via an “anonymous”  letter earlier this summer.

The Washington Post says Sen. Dianne Feinstein got that letter in late July. Yet the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee sat on it until last week, when it could do the most harm. Then she referred the matter to the FBI.

Feinstein and Kavanaugh had at least one private meeting this summer where she could have asked him about this calumny. She didn’t. Feinstein bloviated freely at Kavanaugh’s televised hearing earlier this month. Yet she never raised the issue. 

Now she’s yapping about how she finds Kavanaugh’s accuser “credible”?

Oh, please.

Feinstein should be censured for this stunt. 

Republicans engaged in cutthroat politics when they refused to hold a hearing on Merrick Garland’s nomination to the court in 2016. Lots of folks didn’t like it. And they’re still smarting.

That was high-stakes political gamesmanship. This, however, is character assassination.

In the minds of some it’s now up to Kavanaugh to prove that he didn’t attempt to rape a girl decades ago. And the #MeToo zealots will try to bully anyone - especially men - who dares to pose tough questions to his accuser.

Trouble is, if this gambit works, the Democrats will face similar slime when it’s their turn to nominate a Supreme Court justice.

Everyone gets dirty when they engage in the sport of political mud wrestling.