Old White Men
The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet once again on Monday to determine the fate of Bret Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. At least that’s what the schedule is today. It’s an eerily familiar scene: the brilliant jurist, literally days away from a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, dragged back in front of the Committee. A woman, highly educated and successful, brought into the harsh limelight to tell a humiliating and degrading story. And on the dais overlooking the public airing of their lives are the “old white men.”
A scene familiar for those old enough to remember 1991 and President George HW Bush’s nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace retiring Thurgood Marshall. Four years earlier Ted Kennedy led the successful attack on conservative ideologue Robert Bork’s nomination, keeping him off the Court. This time, Thomas was sailing through the process: Senators had returned to the view that a President should be able to have a nominee of his own choosing. Though Thomas shared much of Bork’s ideology, Kennedy did not attack him in the same way – perhaps because he was African-American.
After the committee concluded their questioning, Anita Hill came forward with charges of sexual harassment against Thomas. The committee brought Hill and Thomas back, and the Senators humiliatingly pushed Hill through the “exact words” of her harassment. Republican Senators Arlen Spector, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley were inquisitors, eliciting terms like “pubic hair on Coke cans” and “long dong silver” that entered the American political vocabulary. Hill courageously withstood outrageous claims from the “old white men” who sat in judgment; leaving America with a vision of their attacks. And Ted Kennedy, silenced by his own sexual history, sat in obvious discomfort.
Joe Biden, then chairman of the committee, was also clearly uncomfortable with the nature of the testimony. He cut off further witnesses and other information, abandoning Hill and leaving Thomas damaged but able to survive the confirmation vote, 52-48. Thomas is still on the Court.
Twenty-seven years later, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of more than just harassment. She states that he sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school. And, at least on the Republican side of the committee, it will seem like history revisited: the same old white men, even older. Orrin Hatch and Chuck Grassley are still there, now in charge, and while other Republican members are younger, they are faced with a modern quandary. If they attack Ford like Anita Hill, will they face a different backlash in this “#MeToo era” than politicians of the 1990’s? And the President, like Kennedy before, is quieted by his own history.
And unlike Anita Hill, Dr. Blasey Ford is taking steps to protect herself from an inquisition. She has stated that she is willing to testify, but she believes that the incident should be investigated before her appearance, a standard practice using the FBI. Reasonably, she wants the Committee to have some facts before they try to pass judgment.
The Republican Party is already in trouble for the November elections. Should the members of the committee be seen as “old white men” attacking a victim, the result could be even greater political losses. The “younger” Republicans like Ben Sasse and Mike Lee can’t be seen as “sitting by” while their older colleagues attack. And the Democrats on the Committee should let the women Senators take the lead, with former prosecutors Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris defending. Senior Senator Pat Leahy, also at the Anita Hill hearing, should lay low.
If the Kavanaugh nomination is stopped it will be seen as a strong Democratic victory, despite the fact that a new nominee with the same ideology will be back in front of the Committee within weeks. If it goes through, then the Republicans will be forced to live with the political consequences, perhaps making November’s expected “blue wave” more of a “blue tsunami.”
For Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, it must seem a lose-lose situation. He will determine Kavanaugh’s fate, regardless of the committee’s decision. McConnell is known for his ability to count votes: the Kavanaugh nomination won’t go to the floor in the Senate if he can’t win. In fact, if the votes aren’t there, Kavanaugh won’t even get to Monday’s hearing.
There is an old movie called “War Games,” about a rogue computer in charge of national defense that almost begins a nuclear war. The computer is taught to play out every nuclear scenario out – and reaches a startling conclusion: the only winning move is not to play.
Perhaps McConnell will decide the same.
