CT Blue

The end of the Kavanaugh saga approaches. A few observations.

First, lets stipulate that all the evidence suggests that Dr. Ford’s account of Kavanaugh’s actions is substantially true. We can also put aside any question of whether Kavanaugh’s actions when he was fifteen are sufficient grounds to deny him the right to strip women, minorities, gay people, Democratic voters, and workers of their rights for the next forty years. His persistent lies about his past actions, and his present involvement in attempts to smear his accuser are sufficient grounds, and those actions are taking place right now.

I read today that the loathsome Neil Gorsuch is also an alum of Georgetown Prep, which leads one to wonder what, precisely, the Jesuits are doing over there. Was there no adult supervision of these up and coming masters of the universe? Let’s take another look at that yearbook page.

I went to a public high school. All of our organized activities had faculty advisers. I can say without doubt that this sort of stuff would never have gotten into one of our yearbooks, even if someone had been coarse enough to want to put it in. One can only speculate about what the priests were doing when they should have been supervising the entitled offspring of the Washington rich.

Another observation. I went to a college where there were lots of preppies, most of whom attended single sex prep schools. It seemed to me, even then, that they came in two flavors. There were the predator types who thought of females as sex objects and only sex objects and there were the decent types who, not having been exposed to females in their formative high school years (and possibly not even before that) were painfully shy around girls and couldn’t quite conceive that they could be acquaintances as well as objects of desire. The single exception was a guy in one of my classes who kept talking about his girlfriend in Northern Ireland, who turned out to be imaginary. Anyway, it is thoroughly believable that Kavanaugh had the attitude toward women that is reflected in the allegations of his accusers, and in his casual claim to be a “Renate Alumnius”.

As to the current situation: Kavanaugh knows that Ford is telling the truth. The Republicans know she is telling the truth. He will lie about it. His lie will probably be to the effect that something probably did happen to her at a party, but the little woman’s memory is mixed up as to identity. Every Republican on the committee will know that any woman to whom such a thing happened would never forget the identity of her attacker. Nonetheless, they will pretend to believe it. Kavanaugh will also lie about his involvement in the aborted attempt to blame a named middle school teacher for the assault, which everyone will also know is a lie, just as everyone knew he was lying when he denied any knowledge of Judge Kozinski’s antics. Actually, it’s extremely easy to know when he’s lying: it’s when his mouth is open.

It remains to be seen whether Profile in Courage Susan Collins and her sister in courage, Lisa Murkowski, will decline to vote as ordered by their male bosses. There’s a lot of talk on the internet that the nomination is really in trouble, but my guess is that he’ll be a Supreme Court judge by the end of the month.