Publisher’s Point: The Kavanaugh Kerfuffle And The Kids

By: Ali Elizabeth Turner

Cirque du Kavanaugh has been going on for several weeks, and just when you think it can’t get raunchier, it does. A 3 ½ foot cardboard cut-out graphic photo of male genitalia was sent to a Republican lawmaker who happens to be a woman by the name of Susan Collins. She was noncommittal at first as to how she was going to vote, and I am hoping that she will remember these kinds of vile tactics were what gave the women’s movement of the ‘60s some of its credibility in the first place. But, back then, women did not do this to women. In that day, it would have been the bailiwick of boys in men’s bodies thinking it was okay for “boys to be boys.”

We could spend all day on the allegation of an incident of sexual impropriety that occurred 35 years ago, in an undisclosed place whose location is not remembered by anyone, accuser or the accused. We have a letter signed by more than 200 women, including former girl friends from high school and college who have asserted, in the strongest possible terms, that Brett Kavanaugh was never anything but a gentlemen; and both former flames have been able to remain friends with him. We have the guy who was supposedly the co-offender 35 years ago calling the allegations “absolutely nuts.”

We have the timing of the so-called revelation of the so-called incident that supposedly has been secretly on the radar for several months, was never supposed to see the light of day, nor have its author be identified, nor the details of the allegation made public. Some media folks would call that “gravitas.”

We have an alleged incident that absolutely cannot be proven, ever. But, on Monday, if Professor Ford does not bail and actually shows up to accuse Brett Kavanaugh “to his face,” lawyers for both sides will do their best to intimidate their respective opponents into somehow tripping up in a setting that was never intended to be a courtroom. And then there is the request that the FBI get involved in its own investigation. If the Trump-Russia collusion case is any indication of how that would go, thinking people would say, “Not on my watch.”

While we are jettisoning our remaining extant cultural decorum as it pertains to confirming an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, I am reminded of the Clinton era, and the many scandals that rocked our realm as to the sexual conduct of the President of the United States. The most unsavory at the time was the Monica Lewinsky incident. There was no denial as to what happened, rather the issue was if Bill Clinton deserved to stay in the White House as the leader of the free world. You know what was one of the hardest parts of that time for me? It was having the innocence of the kids in my life sullied over a DNA stain on a dress, and that result is something that not many people are talking about — the effect of all of this on Kavanaugh’s kids.

Brett Kavanaugh has two beautiful, young daughters who should be protected as long as possible from the slime that they’ll encounter all too soon. I doubt Di-Fi thought about them in terms of “sisterhood-is-powerful” when she and others set out to destroy their father’s reputation, career, and life for political purposes in the name of being a so-called voice for women. Can you imagine what it must be like for an 8 year-old daughter to wonder if Coach K, the name she has for her daddy who coaches her school basketball team, is secretly someone who could give a flying flip about women? Congratulations, females. Your lack of integrity may just succeed in inspiring people to return to not believing a woman when she says she’s been harmed, and you have hurt two beautiful girls. Way to go.