Despite being wired for doubt, I believed Ford; Kavanaugh is unfit to be on the Supreme Court

Before I get to the main event, I just want to express my satisfaction that my on-again, off-again fandom of the Milwaukee Brewers—the team I grew-up rooting for when Bob Uecker was just starting out as the play-by-play announcer—was rewarded this season by a surprise final push to overtake the Chicago Cubs for the NL Central crown and the league’s best overall record. Christian Yelich became the first Brewer to win a batting title and the closest to win the triple crown. Even oft-injured, PED-less Ryan Braun—who was supposed to be the first “face” of the franchise since Robin Yount retired—was instrumental in the final stretch, hitting five homeruns and driving in 11 runs during the season closing 8-game winning streak. The Brewers haven’t been to the World Series since 1982, so here’s to hoping. 

Now to the less feel-good stories. On the Metro bus I ride on to and from work there is a poster plastered at the front of the bus that shows three females and a male, all stony-faced. We are told to “Report it to stop it.” Stop what? In smaller print we find “Sexual misconduct—comments, gestures and behavior—is off limits on Metro.” This is the kind of thing that really gives the “MeToo” movement a bad name, because this poster assumes wrongly that sexual harassment is a frequent “problem” on Metro buses, and invites false or exaggerated accusations by females suddenly “alerted” to its existence. I contacted Metro and expressed my anger that in over 25 years of riding Metro buses I have never seen or heard even once anything qualifying as “sexual harassment,” and that the broad “definition” it provided could encompass anything a self-pitying or vindictive person can imagine. 

On the other hand, I have complained dozens of times about incidents of discrimination by drivers against me because of my “ethnicity,” and nothing ever changes about it, even involving the same driver (on more than one occasion a driver told me “go ahead, I don’t care” when I threatened to contact Metro about their discriminatory or rude behavior). Just this past day I observed a driver lie to a man who appeared to be Hispanic who asked if the bus stopped at a certain location, and left him out on the street; I informed the driver that I knew he was lying and he probably did so because he was prejudiced against the man. And I’m not the only one filing complaints; I once checked Metro’s own online data base, and there had been 4,000 complaints against drivers in the previous 12 months. Of course, an even more common occurrence is loud and thoughtless-of-others behavior by some riders, especially females who have a cell phone in their hands. 

Nevertheless, I am capable of revising my thinking when evidence of credibility is in hand.  After two days of Donald Trump embarrassing himself (even if he is too much the narcissist for self-reflection to realize it) and the country during his UN speech  last week (not surprisingly co-written by that toad Stephen Miller), followed by a press conference in which he “only” added another 500 lies to his resumé in one sitting, I was ready for anything. On the third day came Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee of sexual assault by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh over three decades ago when they were high school students. I have to admit that I had no clue what to expect from her, especially given the lack of corroborating evidence or testimony. But I listened to her testimony on the radio and I believed her; she came across as a person who had come reluctantly and had little to gain except to tell the truth. There was still a tiny chance that her performance was all a front to gain maximum sympathy to exact revenge, but if that was the case she couldn’t have played it better. 

Other women have come forward with their stories, also as yet uncorroborated, but then again, Bill Cosby was recently convicted almost solely on the “credible” testimony by one alleged victim of sexual assault (he was a television star—why did he have to resort to drugging women?) and accusations by others; why should Kavanaugh be immune from the same? Let us not also forget that Al Franken--who started out as a writer for Saturday Night Live--was compelled to resign his Senate seat for far less, mainly for the kind of "pranks" you would see in a typical late Seventies or Eighties teen comedy. And it took just one peep from a female Democratic senator.

When he spoke in response to Ford’s testimony, I felt nothing but revulsion for Kavanaugh. Again just listening to the tone of his voice turned me against him almost immediately. It seemed to me that he realized that Ford’s testimony was credible enough that he had to do something to turn the public mood back in his favor, but the method he chose clearly backfired for anyone who wasn’t part of the Republican “base.” The arrogance, the condescension, the obvious obfuscation of the truth in regard to his past, the ridiculous resort to right-wing conspiracy theories was bad enough, but even worse was the evidence that this man was temperamentally unfit to be on the U.S. Supreme Court; we already have someone like that on the Court, Clarence Thomas, whose judgments seem to be vindictive in nature after Anita Hill’s considerably less serious testimony against him. But even worse than his words was the actually viewing of Kavanaugh’s facial contortions later on; I saw a man whose very countenance was a look of evil, and if he gets on the Court, there is no telling what kind of malicious mischief he is capable of. Not that he didn’t have his defenders in the media; Megan Kelly showed her true far-right colors defending Kavanaugh and belittling Ford on her NBC morning show the day after.

Republicans are still desirous of ramming him home, but since at least one Republican senator cannot square his vote with his conscience, the FBI is currently doing a redo if its background investigation of Kavanaugh. It is already plain as day that Kavanaugh was lying about his past drinking and carousing, his belligerence when drunk and even getting into fights while drunk. Let’s not forget the old dictum that “drink” doesn’t change a person, but only makes his or her true nature more plain. Listening to Sen, Lindsay Graham’s vicious, hypocritical attack on the “unfair” accusations against Kavanaugh, I wondered if he had come to the hearings after a little too much imbibing himself. The greater truth is that it is far more unfair that the greater portion of this country would be "judged" by this individual.