History is going to be made a few hours from now at the Senate Judiciary Committee. The controlling Republicans of that committee are men who have for some time shown themselves deft at laying the foundations for tyranny, though they choose innocuous labels for it. A key element of this is sticking rightwing and ultra-rightwing judges into every nook and cranny of the federal court system.
For that reason, they’d very much like to have avoided the testimony of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford about a man they figured just a dozen days ago would already be the 114th justice appointed to the Supreme Court. If her answers to the queries the Republicans’ hired gun asks are as clear and powerful and believable as her prepared statement, sending the full Senate a recommendation that Kavanaugh be confirmed will require them to put the depth of their hypocrisy and ideological corruption on national display. While this happens fairly often, this time it’s just six weeks before the midterm elections that polls and analysts already view as potentially disastrous for the GOP.
All or almost all of these committee Republicans made up their minds well before Brett Kavanaugh testified to the committee. They likely will vote to recommend his confirmation regardless of what Ford says. Sen. Lindsey Graham, for instance, says 1,000 accusations of sexual predation by Kavanaugh will not change his vote.
In a just world, Judge Kavanaugh would have withdrawn his name from nomination days ago, or had it withdrawn for him.
But that’s not the dimension we live in. In a just world, after all, the moderate Merrick Garland would have been the ninth justice on the Court for two years by now. In a just world, a woman who reports a sexual attack would not be treated like the perp. In a just world, the Judiciary Committee would pause while the allegations of Ford and the other two named women who have come forward are investigated.
If any of the 11 white male Republicans on the committee actually had the nation’s best interests at heart, the best interests of women, Kavanaugh’s extremist political philosophy and the roster of his lies under oath would already have stirred them to block his ascension from Circuit judgeship to highest Court in the land. But his extremism is their extremism. It bolsters the policies these marionettes legislate for corporate advantage. They are diligent in their purveyance and maintenance of racial, gender, economic, and environmental injustices. If confirmed, the newest associate justice will align with the rightmost members already on the Court, providing the five votes needed for some wretched rulings. One of those being, of course, is Roe v. Wade.
But, in the face of seething anger from millions of women over the way Dr. Ford has been treated and characterized, if at least some Republicans on and off the committee can’t detach themselves from their profound misogyny for five minutes and avoid greeting her testimony with their notorious tin-ear response to the #MeToo movement—and also avoid trying to turn Kavanaugh into the victim—the hearing could very well make the disaster coming for them at the polls in November even worse than the smartest of them already fear.
xI’m still processing the part of the day where Donald Trump stood in front of—what, hundreds?—of reporters, presented an absolute morphine fantasia of a lie about a globally televised speech, and not a single one stood up and said “this is bullshit, you’re just lying right now.â€Â
— Jonathan M. KatzâœÂðŸÂ» (@KatzOnEarth) September 27, 2018 xThe last story @RonanFarrow and I teamed up on exposed NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of sexual misconduct, resulting in his resignation under 3 hours later. He was one of Trump's most effective Democratic foes. https://t.co/dH5AHComcj
— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) September 25, 2018
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