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<\/p>\nOld White Men<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Senate Judiciary Committee will meet once again on Monday to determine the fate of Bret Kavanaugh\u2019s nomination to the Supreme Court. At least that’s what the schedule is today. \u00a0 It\u2019s an eerily familiar scene:\u00a0 the brilliant jurist, literally days away from a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land, dragged back in front of the Committee.\u00a0 A woman, highly educated and successful, brought into the harsh limelight to tell a humiliating and degrading story.\u00a0 And on the dais overlooking the public airing of their lives are the \u201cold white men.\u201d<\/p>\n
A scene familiar for those old enough to remember 1991 and President George HW Bush\u2019s nomination of Clarence Thomas to replace retiring \u00a0Thurgood Marshall. \u00a0Four years earlier Ted Kennedy led the successful attack on conservative ideologue Robert Bork\u2019s nomination, keeping him off the Court. \u00a0This time,\u00a0Thomas was sailing through the process: \u00a0Senators had returned to the view that a President should be able to have a nominee of his own choosing. \u00a0Though Thomas shared much of Bork’s ideology, Kennedy did not attack him in the same way \u2013 perhaps because he was African-American.<\/p>\n
After the committee concluded their questioning, Anita Hill came forward with charges of sexual harassment against Thomas.\u00a0 The committee brought Hill and Thomas back, and the Senators humiliatingly pushed Hill through the \u201cexact words\u201d of her harassment. Republican Senators Arlen Spector, Orrin Hatch, and Chuck Grassley were inquisitors, eliciting terms like \u201cpubic hair on Coke cans\u201d and \u201clong dong silver\u201d that entered the American political vocabulary.\u00a0 Hill courageously withstood outrageous claims from the \u201cold white men\u201d who sat in judgment; leaving America with a vision of their attacks.\u00a0 And Ted Kennedy, silenced by his own sexual history, sat in obvious discomfort.<\/p>\n
Joe Biden, then chairman of the committee, was also clearly uncomfortable with the nature of the testimony.\u00a0He cut off further witnesses and other information, abandoning Hill and \u00a0leaving Thomas damaged but able to survive the confirmation vote, 52-48. \u00a0Thomas is still on the Court.<\/p>\n
Twenty-seven years later, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford has come forward to accuse Kavanaugh of more than just harassment.\u00a0 She states that he sexually assaulted her when they were both in high school.\u00a0 And, at least on the Republican side of the committee, it will seem like history revisited: the same old white men, even older.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 If they attack Ford like Anita Hill, will they face a different backlash in this \u201c#MeToo era\u201d than politicians of the 1990\u2019s? And the President, like Kennedy before, is quieted by his own history.<\/p>\n
And unlike Anita Hill, Dr. Blasey Ford is taking steps to protect herself from an inquisition. \u00a0She 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. \u00a0Reasonably, she wants the Committee to have some facts before they try to pass judgment.<\/p>\n
The Republican Party is already in trouble for the November elections.\u00a0 Should the members of the committee be seen as \u201cold white men\u201d attacking a victim, the result could be even greater political losses. \u00a0The \u201cyounger\u201d Republicans like Ben Sasse and Mike Lee can\u2019t be seen as \u201csitting by\u201d while their older colleagues attack.\u00a0 And the Democrats on the Committee should let the women Senators take the lead, with former prosecutors Amy Klobuchar and Kamala Harris defending.\u00a0 Senior Senator Pat Leahy, also at the Anita Hill hearing, should lay low.<\/p>\n
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. \u00a0 If it goes through, then the Republicans will be forced to live with the political consequences, perhaps making November\u2019s expected \u201cblue wave\u201d more of a \u201cblue tsunami.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, it must seem a lose-lose situation.\u00a0 He will determine Kavanaugh\u2019s fate, regardless of the committee\u2019s decision.\u00a0 McConnell is known for his ability to count votes: \u00a0the Kavanaugh nomination won\u2019t go to the floor in the Senate if he can\u2019t win.\u00a0In fact, if the votes aren\u2019t there, Kavanaugh won\u2019t even get to Monday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
There is an old movie called \u201cWar Games,\u201d about a rogue computer in charge of national defense that almost begins a nuclear war.\u00a0 The computer is taught to play out every nuclear scenario out \u2013 and reaches a startling conclusion:\u00a0 the only winning move is not to play.<\/p>\n
Perhaps McConnell will decide the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"