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| "Hi Cindy. Will you be my girlfriend? yes no. Love Bret" from Donald Trump, Jr. |
Donald Trump Jr.’s elementary-school-graphics attempt at humor on Instagram was typical of Jr.’s tiny little brain’s inability to perceive the world around it in anything other than doo-doo and caa-caa jokes. That the son of a sitting president would act with such shameless arrogance, nose-thumbing impunity, and overblown sense of entitlement must send shivers down the spines of every former-president’s daughters and sons.
Then South Carolina freshman Representative, Republican Ralph Norman, in a stand-up routine that would have had him tossed from every comedy club between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, said, "Did you hear about this? Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln." This is the same idiot who, during a meeting with gun-control activists, placed a loaded gun on a table and said, “Guns don’t shoot people; people shoot guns… I’m not going to be a Gabby Gifford.”
Shortly after Rep. Norman tried to throw shade at Dr. Ford and the Notorious RBG, that sterling example of piety, Utah’s Orrin Hatch, said he had “some question” whether Ford is “mixed up” and confusing Kavanaugh with someone else.
Then South Carolina freshman Representative, Republican Ralph Norman, in a stand-up routine that would have had him tossed from every comedy club between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, said, "Did you hear about this? Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out saying she was groped by Abraham Lincoln." This is the same idiot who, during a meeting with gun-control activists, placed a loaded gun on a table and said, “Guns don’t shoot people; people shoot guns… I’m not going to be a Gabby Gifford.”
Shortly after Rep. Norman tried to throw shade at Dr. Ford and the Notorious RBG, that sterling example of piety, Utah’s Orrin Hatch, said he had “some question” whether Ford is “mixed up” and confusing Kavanaugh with someone else.
And then, there is, of course, the president himself who has been oh so slow to get off his Twitter block, seemingly exercising Herculean strength of resolve not to demean, diminish, or defame Dr. Ford. Ah, yes…that resolve crumbled last night after the president was briefed by his favorite brown-nosed colon suppository of infinite knowledge, Sean Hannity. Beginning with a rally in Las Vegas in which DJT said he wondered why the FBI wasn’t asked to investigate Dr. Ford’s claim 36 years ago, he doubled down Friday morning with this gem of a tweet:
“I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”Theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli is often credited with a wonderful phrase leveled at those who exhibit careless or incorrect thinking: “That is not only not right; it is not even wrong.” So true, Dr. Pauli. So true. Such is the state of careless and incorrect thinking in the White House and on Capitol Hill. They are not only not right, they are not even wrong.
In these four examples, and in dozens of others sinking to the level of dishonorable mentions, the common threads are the continued cluelessness, misogyny, disrespect, and willful obliviousness to the plight of sexual victims across the spectrum of American life. There is no sign of humanity in any of these men’s actions or lives to date. There is nothing about them remotely redeemable if they hold fast to their knuckle-dragging anti-woman, anti-victim, anti-empathy, anti-fairness world views. They, and their equally-clueless cohorts and enablers (silent colleagues, wives, sons, daughters), do such deleterious disservice to the search for truth and justice.
As I write this, the negotiations between Dr. Ford and the Judiciary Committee seem to be converging on some form of hearing next week in which Dr. Ford and judge Kavanaugh will have opportunities to state their cases and, maybe, defend their positions. I seriously doubt Dr. Ford will, in fact, garner any kind of justice from the hearing, and I give her high marks just for screwing her courage to the sticking point and flying from California smack into the headwinds of a sad political theater, the final act of which has been predetermined.
There is no doubt in my mind that the cards have been stacked against Dr. Ford for some time now—and my doubt is not informed by any certainty that her account of the assault more than three decades ago is accurate. I don’t know Dr. Ford, and I don’t know Brett Kavanaugh. My doubt is informed by my career-based knowledge of what a murderous and duplicitous hell-hole Capitol Hill has become, and by my own experiences with private schools (as a student, and as the parent of three private-school students). Both worlds are known for their toxicity when it comes to fair treatment of vulnerable students or adults.
Reports of excessive drinking and sexual assault are not new to either the Hill or to private schools; the rites of passage for some students, and many lawmakers, seem to be pulled from the same playbook of power: if you are privileged, you get a pass on your behavior…for life. If you are a target, you stay a target…for life. So far, what I see is one person of privilege who may or may not have done what has been alleged, and one target who is certain something happened to her and is seeking redress through a fair hearing. But how fair can that be?
I hope (against hope) that when next Thursday (Sep. 27) has come and gone, and the Senate has confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, that people will remember that day as the day when yet another woman was fed into the meat grinder of petty partisanship. What is happening to professor Ford was totally predictable and just as predictably abhorrent.
I am weary and drained by the inhumane, unjust, unfair, cold-blooded, poisonous treatment of women, and minorities (religious, ethnic, physically-disabled, gender-shamed, etc.) who only seek justice, kindness, and understanding.
What effort would it have taken judge Kavanaugh--if he is blameless--to say to the media, "I want Dr. Ford to tell her story, and she must be allowed to do so without shame and fear?" If he has any sense of decency and judicial vision, he would want Dr. Ford to be able to speak in the public forum. To be a judge is to be open to all sides of a case. But...I have been in this town far too long to try to raise a crop of fairness when the only soil available is drenched in acid.
Dr. Ford is in a lose-lose position, as are so many women who live with demons created by thoughtless, selfish men. What is so laughable about this strain of thoughtlessness and selfishness is that the Republicans--among whose ranks are women, it must be said--are willing to lose the House in order to gain the Supreme Court. How sad for the Republic.
I want to add one more point to my earlier comment about Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. My wife raised a very reasonable question about Kavanaugh, and that is, wouldn't it be the right thing for the judge to do to call on the media--journalists and social posters alike--to back off on the attacks against Dr. Ford? To state publicly his distaste for those who have appropriated Dr. Ford's identity, who have caused her to leave her home, who have leveled epithets and baseless claims against her? If he is a person of character, truly blameless in this matter, would it not be right for him, as a jurist and as a fellow human being, to at least call on Dr. Ford's tormentors to cease and desist? He loses nothing by calling for calm and reason; he gains nothing of moral value by allowing the pillorying to continue.
He has an army of advisers to help him prep for his moment before the Judiciary Committee; Dr. Ford has no experience coping with the maelstrom that awaits her. It seems to us that the decent thing for Kavanaugh to do, at the very least, is to try to assuage Dr. Ford's fears by calling for a cease-fire until she is ready to face what is going to be a brutal assault.
I'm going to say this again and again until my bone-headed male brethren realize I'm serious and they are wrong: Professor Ford's allegation is not about party, about timing, about derailing Kavanaugh for someone else's dark purpose. Her coming forward--at any time her courage allows, even 35 years later--is about trying to right a wrong, about stating truth to overwhelming power, about standing up to bullies no matter what suit or robe the bullies wear or club they belong to or cadre of enablers they can assemble.
I am not fully prepared to express something very deep and troubling that happened to me not 20, not 30, not even 50...but 60 years ago at the hands of two women and a young girl who thought preying on a little boy was nothing more than sport. No, it was not the worst that some of you may fear, but it was a forever moment in a young boy's life that cannot be erased. But that experience, as old as it may seem to be to (mostly male) skeptics, is sometimes as clear as the monitor these words flow across, as clear as my bird pictures, as clear as dawn in the desert. There is no doubt in my mind, none, that Dr. Ford needs to speak her truth, and she must be heard by compassionate ears, not railroaded or meat-grindered by forces eager to see her fail and fail publicly.
Consider that judge Kavanaugh has now completed four days of briefings and preparation sessions, going over all the possible questions the Senate panel may have, fine-tuning his statement with the help of White House staff and probably Senate committee staff as well. By the time Monday rolls around, he will be on his best game (and he lives locally...no transcontinental plane flight for him). In the meantime, Dr. Ford, pulled from obscurity by her own conscience, can never, ever be as prepared as Kavanaugh.
Dr. Ford may have some intellectual vision of what a Senate hearing looks like, sounds like...but she is woefully underprepared for the shock and brutality that will descend upon her from the Republican side of the panel. Ask me, ask anyone who has staffed up a Senate panel that is bent on making fools of innocents, and we'll all tell you that Dr. Ford will be walking into a den better than half of which is filled with bitter old white men who want only to see their guy sit on the Supreme Court. Truth means nothing to them; if it did, they would not be in such a rush to condemn and move on, leaving one more female body in the dark ditch of pre-determinism.
To those who say this is just a DNC plan to delay and obfuscate, you couldn't be more wrong, and if you are a man, you should be ashamed to lay your poorly-educated prejudice on a woman you've never met, whose life has been inverted, whose whole purpose has been flagrantly defiled by haters. Your thinking is not only not right; it is not even wrong.
I hope (against hope) that when next Thursday (Sep. 27) has come and gone, and the Senate has confirmed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, that people will remember that day as the day when yet another woman was fed into the meat grinder of petty partisanship. What is happening to professor Ford was totally predictable and just as predictably abhorrent.
I am weary and drained by the inhumane, unjust, unfair, cold-blooded, poisonous treatment of women, and minorities (religious, ethnic, physically-disabled, gender-shamed, etc.) who only seek justice, kindness, and understanding.
What effort would it have taken judge Kavanaugh--if he is blameless--to say to the media, "I want Dr. Ford to tell her story, and she must be allowed to do so without shame and fear?" If he has any sense of decency and judicial vision, he would want Dr. Ford to be able to speak in the public forum. To be a judge is to be open to all sides of a case. But...I have been in this town far too long to try to raise a crop of fairness when the only soil available is drenched in acid.
Dr. Ford is in a lose-lose position, as are so many women who live with demons created by thoughtless, selfish men. What is so laughable about this strain of thoughtlessness and selfishness is that the Republicans--among whose ranks are women, it must be said--are willing to lose the House in order to gain the Supreme Court. How sad for the Republic.
I want to add one more point to my earlier comment about Dr. Ford and Brett Kavanaugh. My wife raised a very reasonable question about Kavanaugh, and that is, wouldn't it be the right thing for the judge to do to call on the media--journalists and social posters alike--to back off on the attacks against Dr. Ford? To state publicly his distaste for those who have appropriated Dr. Ford's identity, who have caused her to leave her home, who have leveled epithets and baseless claims against her? If he is a person of character, truly blameless in this matter, would it not be right for him, as a jurist and as a fellow human being, to at least call on Dr. Ford's tormentors to cease and desist? He loses nothing by calling for calm and reason; he gains nothing of moral value by allowing the pillorying to continue.
He has an army of advisers to help him prep for his moment before the Judiciary Committee; Dr. Ford has no experience coping with the maelstrom that awaits her. It seems to us that the decent thing for Kavanaugh to do, at the very least, is to try to assuage Dr. Ford's fears by calling for a cease-fire until she is ready to face what is going to be a brutal assault.
I'm going to say this again and again until my bone-headed male brethren realize I'm serious and they are wrong: Professor Ford's allegation is not about party, about timing, about derailing Kavanaugh for someone else's dark purpose. Her coming forward--at any time her courage allows, even 35 years later--is about trying to right a wrong, about stating truth to overwhelming power, about standing up to bullies no matter what suit or robe the bullies wear or club they belong to or cadre of enablers they can assemble.
I am not fully prepared to express something very deep and troubling that happened to me not 20, not 30, not even 50...but 60 years ago at the hands of two women and a young girl who thought preying on a little boy was nothing more than sport. No, it was not the worst that some of you may fear, but it was a forever moment in a young boy's life that cannot be erased. But that experience, as old as it may seem to be to (mostly male) skeptics, is sometimes as clear as the monitor these words flow across, as clear as my bird pictures, as clear as dawn in the desert. There is no doubt in my mind, none, that Dr. Ford needs to speak her truth, and she must be heard by compassionate ears, not railroaded or meat-grindered by forces eager to see her fail and fail publicly.
Consider that judge Kavanaugh has now completed four days of briefings and preparation sessions, going over all the possible questions the Senate panel may have, fine-tuning his statement with the help of White House staff and probably Senate committee staff as well. By the time Monday rolls around, he will be on his best game (and he lives locally...no transcontinental plane flight for him). In the meantime, Dr. Ford, pulled from obscurity by her own conscience, can never, ever be as prepared as Kavanaugh.
Dr. Ford may have some intellectual vision of what a Senate hearing looks like, sounds like...but she is woefully underprepared for the shock and brutality that will descend upon her from the Republican side of the panel. Ask me, ask anyone who has staffed up a Senate panel that is bent on making fools of innocents, and we'll all tell you that Dr. Ford will be walking into a den better than half of which is filled with bitter old white men who want only to see their guy sit on the Supreme Court. Truth means nothing to them; if it did, they would not be in such a rush to condemn and move on, leaving one more female body in the dark ditch of pre-determinism.
To those who say this is just a DNC plan to delay and obfuscate, you couldn't be more wrong, and if you are a man, you should be ashamed to lay your poorly-educated prejudice on a woman you've never met, whose life has been inverted, whose whole purpose has been flagrantly defiled by haters. Your thinking is not only not right; it is not even wrong.
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