The Main Event – September 21, 2018
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Kavanaugh Allegation Continues
Senate Republicans continue to support Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in the fight against one woman’s suspiciously timed accusations of sexual assault from 35 years ago.
Here’s a recap of this week’s events:
- On Monday, Christine Blasey Ford was reported to be the anonymous accuser from last week (when Dianne Feinstein sent a letter to the FBI the very day there was a confirmation vote scheduled – a letter she has had since July). Ford is now a clinical psychology professor at Palo Alto University.
- Brett Kavanaugh’s statement: “This is a completely false allegation. I have never done anything like what the accuser describes—to her or to anyone. Because this never happened, I had no idea who was making this accusation until she identified herself yesterday. I am willing to talk to the Senate Judiciary Committee in any way the Committee deems appropriate to refute this false allegation, from 36 years ago, and defend my integrity.”
- In an interview with the Washington Post, Ford says that at a house party when she was 15 (no recollection of what month it was or even whose house it was at), Brett Kavanaugh and a friend pushed her into a bedroom, pinned her down and sexually assaulted her after turning up the music so her protests couldn’t be heard.
- She identified the friend as Mark Judge, who is now a journalist and filmmaker. Judge’s statement to The Weekly Standard: “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way.” CNN and other mainstream media outlets are attacking Judge’s character by pointing out that he wrote a book about partying in high school called “Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk” (so of course, he must be guilty of assault).
- Another classmate Ford identifies as being at this mysterious party, Patrick J. Smyth, sent this letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee: “I understand that I have been identified by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford as the person she remembers as ‘PJ’ who supposedly was present at the party she described in her statements to the Washington Post. I am issuing this statement today to make it clear to all involved that I have no knowledge of the party in question; nor do I have any knowledge of the allegations of improper conduct she has leveled against Brett Kavanaugh. Personally speaking, I have known Brett Kavanaugh since high school and I know him to be a person of great integrity, a great friend, and I have never witnessed any improper conduct by Brett Kavanaugh towards women.”
And now, Ed Whelan – a former law clerk for Justice Scalia who now runs the conservative think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center – has uncovered evidence that the house where the party most likely took place was hosted by a kid who looked exactly like Brett Kavanaugh. Chris Garrett, a Georgetown prep classmate and football teammate of Kavanaugh’s, could have easily been mistaken for his classmate Brett.
- After Diane Feinstein made the allegations against Kavanaugh public (despite Ford’s supposed wishes that they remain private), the Republicans on the Committee released a letter signed by 65 women who said they knew Kavanaugh in high school and could vouch for his decency. Ed alert: I have a hard time coming up with 65 women I went to high school with.” Scott agrees, saying there would likely be multiple accusers if Kavanaugh had done this.
Democrat Hypocrisy on Assault
As it turns out, plenty of Democrats have their own similar stories from high school and one of them is Cory “Spartacus” Booker. From the Washington Post on Friday:
When he was in high school, Cory Booker, the New Jersey Democrat and possible White House contender, groped his classmate as they kissed. He reached for her breast, and when she swatted his hand away, he made another attempt…
…But the skeleton in Booker’s closet seized on by outlets such as Fox News and the Daily Caller wasn’t really in his closet. The senator himself chose years ago to air the issue, marking a notable contrast with instances in which accusations of impropriety burst forth as a result of media investigation or opposition research. (Really? A “noble contrast”?)
In 1992, Booker, then a student at Stanford University, wrote a column for his college newspaper in which he recounted the groping and used his own behavior to underscore, in starkly personal terms, how his views had shifted on gender and sexual respect. He credited his work as a peer counselor with the transformation.
“After having my hand pushed away once, I reached my ‘mark,’” he wrote. “Our groping ended soon and while no ‘relationship’ ensued, a friendship did. You see, the next week in school she told me that she was drunk that night and didn’t really know what she was doing.”
Booker’s words speak for themselves.
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