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Quote of the Day: Fighting Back
“Christine Blasey may have been sexually assaulted, he said, but not by him, adding that he intended no ill will to her or her family. ‘The other night Ashley and my daughter Liza said their prayers, and little Liza—all of ten years old—said to Ashley, ‘We should pray for the woman.’ That’s a lot of wisdom from a ten-year-old. We mean no ill will,’ he said, choking up. The hearing room was full of people crying. Kavanaugh’s parents were there to support him and could barely maintain their composure. Watching their anguish over their only son’s ordeal was brutal for the other members of Kavanaugh’s team.” — Justice Brett Kavanaugh, from Justice on Trial, by Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino
The last thing that most of us would wish for is to re-experience that moment when we watched the devastation that the Democrats tried to inflict on the life of Brett Kavanaugh. When he choked up, I felt tears in my eyes. My heart ached for him, for his family and friends and even for the country. How had we come to this moment?
I’m posting this quotation because I think many of us could be reaching a saturation point: how can the ugliness, lies, and irresponsibility of the Left and the Democrats possibly get worse? It’s so tempting to just shut it all out, to inure ourselves to the nightmares that are called “politics” in the 21st century. But we simply can’t.
The next year will be a spiritual and ethical test for those of us who believe in this country and its values. We can either cave in, walk away or throw up our hands—who could blame us?
Instead, we have to stay united against hatred, evil and lies. We have to speak to truth and justice. If we hang together, we will remain strong. Do it for Brett Kavanaugh and his family. Do it for your family. Do it for the country. Do it for the next Supreme Court justice nominee.
Don’t give up.
Published in Politics
I debated with myself regarding the photo of Kavanaugh that I should use. Should I pick one where he is happy with his family? Should I pick one where he is composed and professional? I decided to use the one above because I had a visceral reaction to his expression, and I wanted all of us to be able to identify with the pain he experienced, and the wounds he and his family probably still must tend. I’m sure his life was changed in a way that he will always carry that hearing with him.
It takes strength to fight back alone. Trump only has a handful of friends who’ve got his back, but he has millions of voters who do. Imagine the progress we could have made those first two years if a bunch of lily-livered Republicans hadn’t decided to cut and run . . .
So true, @stad. People resisting before he was elected was one thing. To be betrayed by your party (and some of them do it silently) after you are elected is unconscionable, as far as I’m concerned.
Kavanaugh pretending to have empathy for her was good politics. It may have gotten him a seat on the Supreme Court.
But I strongly disagree. In a perfect world, he should be honest, and go after her. He should forcefully point out that if somebody who falsely accuses him of a horrible crime for purely political reasons does not go to prison, there is something wrong with our system. She is not a sympathetic figure – she’s a vicious liar, heartless enough to destroy someone AND their family for simple politics. An immoral unrepentant criminal like her should do real prison time.
Conceding her virtue was wrong.
Well, ethically, at least. Politically, it was probably right.
Politics is a messy business.
@drbastiat, if you are suggesting he should have said things during his hearing, it would have been disastrous–and stupid. At that time, very few facts about her and her motives were known. She is all the things you say, but those things were not identified until after the hearings. And you know very well that no one would have done anything about his protests after the fact. His comments would have either been ignored, or he would have been attacked even worse. And so would have his family. To be kind, I think you are “Monday-morning quarterbacking.” No one would have brought charges against her. If you were in his shoes, would you have put your family through even worse attacks than they’d already sustained? By the way, they are still digging for ways to malign him and they are still protesting just about any thing he does.
The problem here is the Kavanaugh nomination and confirmation hearings did not produce an immediate negative push-back against those who attempted to smear him, so no lesson will be learned from it, and the same tactics will be tried again, if RBG or any other Justice’s seat comes open while Trump is still in office (whether or not the Senate hearings might have cost the Democrats 1-2 Senate seats last November is open to question, but the Democrats won back the House, so they’re just not going to feel the impact of their actions in the same was as if they had failed to regain control of either branch of Congress and the public’s negative reaction to the treatment of Kavanaugh was seen as a direct cause of that failure).
You can say the same thing for those on the angry left’s attempts now not simply to brand Trump, but to tar anyone who might support anything he does in any way as a hateful, racist, sexist, homophobic Nazi — the only way they stop doing that is if they not only lose in 2020, but they lose to Trump by a larger margin than they did in 2016, and their tactics of trying to demonize and write ordinary people out of the political conversation is seen as a major factor in Trump’s wider margin of victory.
It can always get worse and will if we can’t reduce the power and influence in remote Washington. Every large society that ever existed with time was destroyed by the corruption that comes from centralization. Correction. Some were conquered before corruption destroyed them, then rotted with the conquerors. Some places were illiterate before they centralized so we don’t know much about them. We know about them when they were powerful, centralized and profoundly corrupt and already declining. It seems most places sort things out if people are free. We evolved by accident I suppose because the Brits were so difficult to control with all their rivers, and estuaries and useable ports of all sizes. The center couldn’t control them. We stumbled into freedom and then the new world applied it as if it were a coherent idea which it hadn’t been. We can lose that insight, that way of being and some other places will have to figure it out all over again, if technology hasn’t made it impossible.
I thinks this goes true in daily life where we are now asked to endorse the realignment of reality. We have to be willing to deny that ability to the casual ignorants we encounter. Some are merely ignorant but increasingly they are malignant forces. We have to find our own ways to say No, up is not down. Not debating the point(s), denying the position. Yes, it’s hard and all that, but under the Give them an inch theorem, I don’t see there is another choice.
Although there wasn’t immediate pushback, @jon1979, I hope that the Republicans are looking hard at what happened and determining what they can do if the Dems try this approach again. We saw it with Bork, Thomas and now Kavanaugh, and it has to stop!
I agree, @eodmom. No more Mr. Nice Guy. We have to push back at every opportunity. I think that the Republicans think that, well, maybe if we work with them on this issue (like guns), they’ll start working with us. They’ll become reasonable. Not. Gonna.Happen. They must assume as long as Trump is in office, they will never work with us, unless there is an issue where they get everything they want–which means it will be terrible for Republicans and the country. Enough already!
I agree Susan – Christians are told to be salt and light. The salt represents speaking the truth in season and out – and also offering light, when darkness is closing in all around, hoping people will be drawn to the light and away from darkness. It requires a daily refocusing and some days are harder than others – even tuning out all the hoopla and just saying a prayer, getting outside, taking a walk. We have to stick together – it reminds me of that scene in Gladiator where Russell Crowe instructs the slaves who are ready to go to their slaughter to stay as one, hold the line, it’s the only way we’ll survive is to stay together. They won that battle. Spiritual refueling is essential – Ephesians 6:12 New International Version (NIV)”
” For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
(Marianne Williamson may be on to something here….)
Thanks for this comment, FSC. It expounds on my point beautifully. It is easy to be drawn into darkness, in some ways: it can be anonymous, feel safe and righteous and comforting. But that refocusing takes commitment and discipline, and the “spiritual refueling” is critical. Thanks!
I think going after his accuser would have been a big mistake. I think the Republicans handled her accusations well–get the facts. I say that because I think Kavanaugh understood and expressed exactly what transpired: something bad happened to her and she recorded the event in her mind incorrectly. It doesn’t excuse the Democrats who didn’t vet her story properly. I would be angry at those people. But it would be too far for me to go to blame her for lying intentionally.
Kavanaugh may be more experienced and knowledgeable about witness testimony than the average person. Perhaps that’s why he stopped short of calling her a “liar” in the common meaning of that word. It speaks well to his integrity as a judge that he did not go after her as an intentional liar. I respect him for it.
The human mind does funny things, and we don’t understand it yet.
Thanks, @marcin. In Hemingway and Severino’s book, they talk quite a bit about memories and false memories. It was fascinating to learn how our minds work with our memories and thoughts. I agree with you–I think there would have been little to gain if he’d called her a liar. I do think (from what we’ve read since) that she was politically motivated, but we really don’t know what she thinks she remembers or to what degree she trusts her memory. Once we concretize our memories, they’re pretty well set. We only need to think of situations in our lives where we were sure of something that happened–like when siblings talk about their parents! The Republicans need to fully ingest what they’ve learned; these kinds of hearings must stop.
That was my point. Sorry if I stated it poorly. The way I put it was:
What I meant was that, in my view, he should have pointed out the obvious. That this was simply a hit job. Conceding her virtue was wrong, I thought. Allowing the left to illegally destroy people behind a cloak of virtue is poison, for this confirmation hearing, and for the forseeable future of American politics. He shouldn’t have given in, like that. This is bigger than him.
Ethically, at least. But to your point, politically he really had no other choice but to do what he did. And as I said in my first paragraph, his approach may have gotten him a seat on the Supreme Court. So it worked. Good for him. I criticize him, but I may well have done the same thing in his shoes. The Supreme Court. It’s a dream job. I mean, c’mon.
Politics is a messy business. Being effective politically and reasonably ethical is either very difficult or impossible.
In this case, Kavanaugh was in an impossible situation. He made the most obvious play, and it worked. Politically.
This will keep happening, though, because we refuse to acknowledge that the rattlesnake is a rattlesnake. We tearfully describe it as a beautiful unicorn, worthy of our empathy and love. And if we’re convincing enough, we may be allowed to survive. That time.
But this is a dangerous game.
Again, Kavanaugh made the most obvious choice available to him at the time. What else was he to do?
And so, on and on it goes.
I don’t know how to stop it. The Trump approach (Hit back. Harder.) seems risky. But it also seems to be effective. I don’t know…
Politics is a messy business.
Looking back, the Kavanaugh situation was complicated.
The timing of the allegation from Blasey was extremely suspicious. I haven’t yet read the Hemingway/Severino book, but my impression at the time was that Blasey was probably a radical feminist, and that this fact was whitewashed. I’ve heard a few interviews of Hemingway and Severino, and I think that they did find some significant political bias on Blasey’s part, but I don’t know the details.
The extraordinary thing was the polarization of the reaction. The Democrats went absolutely insane, with the “believe all women” nonsense and praising Blasey’s “courage”. She did not show courage. She showed outrageous cowardice and mendacity, if you accept her story as true, failing to report for over 30 years.
Most conservatives and Republicans, myself included, almost immediately dismissed the allegations as, in all likelihood, a transparent political ploy. This reaction grew as the story unfolded, and Blasey’s claims were found to be contradictory and unsupported by any meaningful corroboration. Further, of course, they were extremely old allegations (over 30 years old), and even if true, would have been a juvenile offense (if it was an offense at all).
I found myself on Dennis Prager’s side, finding the allegations minor and unimportant, even if true. “Attempted rape” is a ridiculous claim, even if Blasey’s allegations are taken as entirely true.
For me, the most frustrating part was the reaction of certain conservatives like Sen. Flake and David French, who gave credence to the allegations. They don’t seem to recognize how their reaction encourages precisely the wrong behavior.
I’d like to see someone with the gumption to say to Blasey, and the whole #MeToo movement:
Thanks for following up, @drbastiat. Especially from a larger picture standpoint, I have been crying out at the nature of politics and how it seems to be easier and easier to act unethically and get away with it. I find it deeply distressing, but a few years ago on Ricochet I was told that the nature of politics was contrary to the ethical. There’s a good post–want to write it?–on whether politics can ever be ethical, or something to that effect? I’d add a few comments!
Love it! I agree!
I wonder whether women are more susceptible to this type of incorrect recollection, specifically related to memories of some sort of physical or sexual assault.
It is possible that, in my thinking, I do not sufficiently account for the extreme vulnerability of women. I’m a very big guy, and while I wasn’t one of the biggest in high school, I wasn’t tiny, either. I don’t recall ever, in my entire life, being physically threatened by someone or even feeling physically threatened by someone. Such fear is simply outside of my experience.
Women are very weak and vulnerable, compared to men. Moreover, our culture lies about this, and tells young girls that they are strong. This — coupled with the general breakdown of sexual morality — puts many girls and women in a dangerous position.
I don’t know how women, in general, react to their vulnerability.
Yabbut… we (that is, women) can’t have it both ways, can we? We’re either weak and vulnerable—so much so that a thirty-second unpleasant and ambiguous interlude with a drunk boy can render an adult a weeping, quavering mess thirty years later—in which case maybe we need all that oppressive protection that the patriarchy provided/imposed. Or we’re just as strong and tough as any man, capable of making our own decisions about, say, whether to have sex at the age of `14 and an abortion a month or so later, so as to preserve our “right” to join the Marines and serve in combat.
Frankly, I can come up with all sorts of minor moments like the one Doctor Ms-ery-Guts pinned on Kavanaugh, and I’ve got some genuine childhood/young adult sexual abuse/assaults I could describe for ya too. But none of it would make me weep pathetically and theatrically before the eyes of the nation.
@HenryRacette says we ought to resurrect the patriarchy; if he wants to make a nationwide pitch for this, I’d suggest providing video of Ms. Blasey-Ford as exhibit A.
And they were in a position where ethics could reign over politics and they chose politics over ethics – especially French. He’s not running for office. His job is to write about the political world. Not to be swayed by it.
Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault is traumatic for women. I’m guessing less so today than twenty-five or fifty years ago simply because blame for sexual assault has been preemptively attached to men.
This is why smart societies don’t create perpetual victims, which is what we’ve done for many people in certain politically identified groups.
But when Blasey-Ford was a teenager and young woman, there were two parts to the assault or attempted assault: the humiliation experienced at the time it occurred and then the guilt later.
Things are better in one way for women today: moral clarity. I don’t care how you are dressed–no one has a right to touch you without your permission. That’s a good change.
I don’t have any personal experience with abuse – except for the truth that every girl dates at least one jerk and everyone has a (known by all ) creep for a colleague, neighbor or boss.
I do have the personal experience of being a former girl and one who has known many girls and women and hired quite a few in varied circumstances. Women have always been physically vulnerable and have always used a variety of means to offset that vulnerability as needed. (See DeMedici, ElizabethI, Catherine the Great, and so on…..) Women are very capable of lying, scheming and manipulating- and worse – to achieve goals they can’t meet physically. This recent phenomenon of promoting (sometimes) believing all women with respect to sex contributes to that tendency to try to get what you want, by whatever means available.
It’s also been my experience that for girls/women, sexual intimacy changes everything. Combined with the “girls lie” reality and bad things can happen. Girls will “say” that sex can be just for fun or laughs or all ok, but I don’t accept that as reality for the large majority of girls. I think the last 30 years of culture disruption has created a huge rent in the fabric of girls’ emotional development. So-called incorrect recollection – or lying about what never happened – is a by-product, not something that’s baked in the cake.
Susan, I was going to comment on the photo you chose of Kavanaugh – whether or not it was the right photo for your essay (I didn’t think it was). However, your explanation regarding the choice works for me.
Politically, I think you’re probably right. I say ‘probably’ because, well, imagine the following scenario:
Kavanaugh blasts her. Either by suddenly remembering that he saw her clubbing baby seals, selling crack cocaine, and drowning puppies in the stream behind the school when nobody was looking (the trauma made him bury this memory for 30 years), or perhaps by simply pointing out that she was lying to intentionally destroy someone and their family for political reasons. Whatever.
Ok, the Democrats respond with righteous indignation, accusing the Republicans of not believing everything every woman says. Some Americans nod their heads, some scratch their heads. Whatever.
Ok, regardless, the Republicans lose the support of a few Olympia Snowe types, and Kavanaugh loses the confirmation.
This really pisses off Trump. So he nominates a 35 year old Clarence Thomas style conservative woman firebrand. The Democrats try the same play they just did, because that’s all they have. The American public is tired of it. So is the Senate. Even Olympia Snowe. This nominee passes, and sits on the Supreme Court for the next 50 years, instead of a squishy centrist like Kavanaugh. The Democrats then become much more careful about this style of attack, and confirmation hearings subsequently return to discussions of legal philosophy etc.
My point is that if Kavanaugh had attacked his accuser, he might have lost the nomination. But it might have the been the right thing to do ethically, and politically. Not for Kavanaugh himself, but for America as a country.
Impossible to say, of course. But I’m not sure that it’s obvious that Kavanaugh’s approach was correct politically.
To be clear, I think it probably was. But I’m just not sure.
On the other hand, our current approach is most certainly not working. So perhaps a different approach might be worth trying?
I don’t know.
It takes strength and courage, the most essential virtue for the expression of all the others. You can be trained to be strong by facing adversity (something I think the President has a lot of experience with in the highly competitive NY real estate development market). But courage seems to come from something more. Character? Righteousness? God’s grace?
We tend to think we’re living in crazy times. I think we haven’t seen anything yet (check the bond market). The Left was going to go after
Robert BorkClarence ThomasBrett Kavanaughthe next Republican nominee because that’s who they are. Utopian ends necessitate any means, no matter how dishonest and unethical or the innocents who get destroyed in the process. They have no shame.Those “conservative” Christians in Iowa who are rooting for Kamala Harris either a) don’t know what conservatism is, or b) don’t know who the Left is. I think it’s the latter, as it is for the Nevers generally. We are a deeply divided nation not because of Donald Trump, but because of who the Left has become: power mad and corrupt — ends justify the means — take no prisoners — the Great (Constitutional Republic) Destroyers. As I like to repeat (interminably), only 10% of the Soviet population belonged to the Communist Party at the peak of Soviet power. We’re waaaay beyond that small proportion in the West and in the US, specifically.
Kavanaugh did the only thing he could — refuse to become the Left’s victim knowing he wouldn’t be the last.
I’m ready for Jesus to come again anytime. ‘Cause I’m pretty sure only God can save us from the Left.
I think you’re being WAY too generous to those Democrats. I think they knew she was making this up. They just didn’t care.
Even if I’m mistaken, there’s no way they should re-open a hearing that is closed, unless they had absolutely bullet-proof evidence. Not some lady with messy hair, large glasses, and a foggy recollection of something that might have happened somewhere. Absolutely rock-solid, unquestionable evidence.
They never should have used her at that point. I can’t believe they even took her call.
Well, actually, I can believe it. Which is depressing.
Agreed.
The real challenge is whether we can apply this rule when it works against our political interest.
I think that those of us on the Right didn’t do so very well, when the accused was President Clinton. This is understandable to some extent, because times were different. Infidelity in a candidate was generally considered a disqualifying problem, prior to Clinton, apart from any allegations of rape or sexual harassment.
I can’t think of a significant recent example of an eleventh-hour accusation against a Democrat. What happened to Al Franken seemed excessive to me. Sure, he was allegedly quite crude and boorish, and my recollection is that there was reasonably prompt reporting (though I don’t precisely recall the timing), but it didn’t strike me as something that should take down a sitting Senator.
I think it should apply no matter who is in power. It’s amazing how easily people (not you) will change their arguments when it’s inconvenient.