By: Ali Elizabeth Turner
To talk about the “Kavanaugh Confirmation Caper” one more time seems borderline stupid, but I feel that I must, mostly because I promised that I would. Good night, since then we have had discussions on everything from virtually non-existent first nation DNA in a senator who sports what she thinks are high cheek bones, a murdered journalist in Turkey with accompanying intrigue that could destabilize the Middle East, a Honduran train of people who seem to think that no one should stand in the way of them entering a country illegally via convoy, mid-term election madness, and a pastor freed from a Turkish prison getting the chance to lay hands on President Trump while praying with and for him.
Inarguably, the soap opera that took place in the process of confirming a Supreme Court Justice was so bad, not only for the Kavanaugh family but the nation as a whole, that President Trump did something I have never seen anyone in his position do, and for which I am grateful. This was to offer an apology to the Kavanaugh family on behalf of the American people for a job interview that unapologetically went for the jugular with the intent of destroying a man personally. For me, that was the most important moment of all: reminding us that in America, according to the 5th, 6th, and 14th Amendments of the Constitution, people are innocent until proven guilty. Operative word: proven.
I have never seen anything like this. We had a purported victim, who reportedly never wanted to be known in public, receive more than her fifteen minutes in the sun. And while her testimony was heart-wrenching, the most that many, including me, could conclude was that something indeed happened to her at some point, but Bret didn’t do it. All of the corroborating statements of the witnesses summoned to testify on her behalf fell apart completely. Then the smoking gun was going to be the therapist’s notes of the session(s) from 2012 that would prove Bret was the perp. Although this had been dangled as bait, at the last moment her legal team felt it would have been damaging to her personally, so the bait was withdrawn. In yet another example of Professor Ford’s sketchy memory, she couldn’t recall whether or not she gave the notes to a Washington Post reporter to peruse, and that was just in July of 2018.
Then there was the call for yet another FBI investigation, and it just may be that Bret has had his life examined and re-examined more than anyone this side of the Inquisition. He passed test after test, to the shrieks and howls of women in the galleries, women in the halls, women in elevators, and in no small part because every woman who has actually known him or worked for him says he is a true gentleman. At times the whole thing made me downright embarrassed to be a woman. My question is, if Bret was the jerk that is claimed by one woman, and then legitimately turned his life around to become the hero of hundreds, wouldn’t the FBI have been able to discover the sequence and scope of that transformation and enlighten us re: Bret’s come-to-Jesus moment?
What far too many people seem to be ignoring is that the Kavanaugh confirmation was something that transcended the tearful testimonies of both Professor Ford and now Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, because ultimately they were not the ones on trial; the Constitution of the United States was. What was supposed to be only an interview for employment was nearly turned into a criminal trial, and in that context, Justice herself would have had to use her blindfold for a hanky to dry her tears. The day we presume that someone who was not on trial in the first place is guilty of gang rape because he was standing near a punch bowl, or at some point possibly threw some ice, you can stick a fork in us as a culture, ‘cuz we are done. And please remember, I am saying this as a woman who is a survivor of many molestations as well as a terrifying assault wherein I was handcuffed, my finger was broken, and whose scar I still bear on the pinky finger of my right hand. I believe I have earned the right here to speak with firmness.
God bless Susan Collins for her courage to be a womanly voice of wisdom, Bret’s daughters for their willingness to pray for their father’s forgetful accuser, and the legislators who voted their conscience rather than their party. My hope is that we will emerge as a better America as a result of raunch that has been redeemed, at least until November.
