Good Morning.
Early Sunday afternoon the news broke that the woman who had accused Supreme Court justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault had revealed her identity. The incident allegedly happened when the woman, then a teenager, and Kavanagh and a buddy, also high school students, were at a party when the parents weren't home. This is not an unusual occurrence. Every American adolescent has probably been to an unparented party, but not everyone wound up either attacking someone or being assaulted. The details of the Kavanaugh trouble are not about fooling around in the bushes; they're sordid and very disturbing. Whether they're true remains to be seen, but the woman reportedly passed a lie detector test and obviously feels strongly enough about her accusations to subject herself to the scrutiny into her life that will likely ruin it.
A few days ago a lot of people were saying that the anonymous story was a last ditch effort by the Democrats to derail the nomination, and the timing is, to be sure, unfortunate, but it's hard to criticize the Dems for almost any sort of tactic, given the fact that the Reps refused to even consider the nomination of Merrick Garland by President Obama. There's clearly a bit of tit for tat going on here, but now it isn't just about the Dems' worry that the court will head right with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh; it's about whether the entire process will be tainted. As for their Republican counterparts: if they've been paying attention during the last year to the Me Too movement, they have a real mess on their hands. Women, those who have a lick of sense and self-respect, are fed up with bad boy behavior and aren't going to tolerate it in someone who expects to spend the next three decades on the high court. They will take to the streets in a heartbeat if they even suspect one of their sisters is being dismissed as irrelevant.
The first people to watch over the next few days are Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, both Republicans, but the guys under the less than courageous leadership of Mitch McConnell will also be interesting to track. McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, is currently Secretary of Transportation, and one wonders what kind of pillow talk those two have at midnight. Why she would lower herself to work for the Bad Boy in Chief is beyond me and why her husband would be okay with her doing it is dumbfounding but sadly, not surprising.
The Dems may be licking their chops but they shouldn't be, given their problems awhile back with Bill Clinton. This Kavanaugh thing is a serious, deplorable state of affairs, plus there's no guarantee the revelations, even if true, will prevent the confirmation. Already crotchety old Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has declared that Kavanaugh is a person of impeccable character. Jeff Flake, the retiring Republican senator from Arizona, however, has said that the confirmation process should not proceed until the woman in question comes before the committee and Kavanaugh is formally confronted about the allegations. This seems to be a reasonable course of action, at least to those of us still interested in something called the truth.
Another week in Washington begins, and as usual, it isn't pretty.
Best regards,
Elisabeth
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