Letters on the Kavanaugh controversy

Memory untrustworthy

Watching the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, I’m saddened that Judge Brett Kavanaugh is being assumed guilty of a traumatic event that happened 36 years ago based solely on the uncorroborated word of Christine Blasey Ford. Ford testified that four people were present at the party where the event happened. All four issued sworn statements that they do not recall the event. But Ford’s accusation is being judged truthful because she is so certain.

It is well known that people distort repressed memories, especially over vast periods of time, allowing the brain to mix information from different sources.

Her certainty of events must be taken with a grain of salt. Rape victims have sometimes, unfortunately, falsely identified their attacker, who is later proven innocent. These people are not purposely lying; their minds are distorting events unbeknownst to them.

Kavanaugh unfit

Judge Brett Kavanaugh has disqualified himself. Whether he sexually abused women or lied under oath is immaterial. Any judge, but especially one seeking a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, should be composed and in control at all times.

In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his blatant anger was apparent as he shouted at the committee and verbally attacked individual senators as well as the Democratic Party and unnamed “left-wing organizations.” He even brought Hillary Clinton into his tirade.

Not only is this not the temperament required of a Supreme Court justice, it makes it clear that any Democratic or left-leaning organization with business before the court would be unlikely to receive an impartial hearing.

Voting speaks

She was “terrified,” soft-spoken and humble, believing it was her “civic duty.”

He was angry, yelling, evasive and rude, believing in partisan politics.

Sen. Orrin Hatch said Christine Blasey Ford was “mistaken.” Sen. Lindsay Graham went seismic about “ruining” Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s life. Kavanaugh will go back to his lifetime seat on the federal bench, waiting to nail the Clintons and his party’s enemies another time.

President Donald Trump needs Kavanaugh’s help redacting the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, showering Trump with absolute presidential powers and pardons.

If Kavanaugh is seated there will be “uproarious laughter” from the guys, and women can march back into second-class citizenship.

But Trump knows better: He’s scared to death.

Women’s screams for help today are just a voting booth away.

Liberal lust for power

The Senate committee hearing resembled more of a third-world kangaroo court than an orderly constitutional process. We know why: Hypocritical liberals still resisting the election of President Donald Trump.

These same lowly reprobates, who openly stated their opposition even before Judge Brett Kavanaugh was nominated, turned the Senate into a circus of character assassination and innuendo. They’ve lied, delayed and resisted to the point of absurdity.

This crowd inflicted similar disrespect on Judge Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas. What a bunch of degenerates: Sen. Diane Feinstein who violated the confidentiality of Christine Blasey Ford’s letter; Sen. Cory Booker who publicly admitted to groping a woman when he was a teen; Sen. Richard Blumenthal who lied about serving in Vietnam and Sen. Tom Carper who admitted to abusing his ex-wife.

These people aren’t fit to judge a swine show. God help us.

Evil begets evil

What’s happened in the Supreme Court nomination hearing for Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a worldwide condition. Republicans are trying to maintain a doomed hierarchy in which they dominate for as long as they can at any cost.

It’s a scorched-earth strategy that, at best, will succeed only in the short term. In the long term, all our children will pay a high price for President Donald Trump’s promotion of divisiveness that has so damaged all of our institutions.

The world has seen this before and it always leads to ruin. The old guard latches on to some figure or group it thinks would help to maintain its status, no matter how toxic that figure or group. Too late, the old guard recognizes they are being used. That is exactly what happened in the 1930s in Italy and Germany. The obvious conclusion: A coalition with evil only results in evil.

Civility in action

Leading up to the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court, I believed a contentious vote would be taken and the die would be cast. But, in the midst of all the heated rhetoric and fierce partisan posturing, legislators from different parties and differing perspectives showed us how to come together for the common good.

Their actions appeared painful, but Sens. Jeff Flake and Chris Coons gave us a lesson in civics and a model for how to get through these troubled times. They appeared to talk respectfully and, most importantly, to listen thoughtfully to each other.

Did the resulting motion change the nomination process?

Probably not, but that brief moment of collegiality is priceless, if we remember it and hold it as a standard for the civil behavior necessary if we intend to move forward as a nation.

Now is the time

As a survivor of inappropriate-groping, hand-over-the-mouth, drunken-young-man-on-top-of-me behavior and having not come forward at the time, I asked myself, why now? Why now is Christine Blasey Ford bringing this to light?

It may be that she is seeing the face of the man who violated her on that evening long ago. He is on national and world media and being considered to serve a lifetime position in one of our country’s most important roles. Surely there are more worthy people in the United States to serve in that honored position

That is why now.

Have they no shame?

This is a response to Joel Pett’s Sept. 30 cartoon. As an 83-year-old white male, I would say to those white male geezers who lined up to ensure the rape of justice that they should be ashamed of themselves. What a gross technique to ensure that a like-minded individual becomes the newest member of the Supreme Court.

I think they are totally uncaring and have no shame.