Different Points of View: Supreme Court and The September Surprise

(We occasionally will present and contrast view points that differ in insight. From time to time we will feature them here. Please read the articles below)

-Source-The Moderate Voice-

Article 1: Hold Onto Your Hat, America: The Kavanaugh Supreme Court Nomination Is Dead

It may take days or even weeks, but Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court is dead, a welcome casualty of converging political and social trends.

The nomination of the man who would be the pivotal fifth conservative high court justice suddenly went on life support on Sunday morning when The Washington Post identified Christine Blasey Ford, a 51-year-old research psychologist at Palo Alto University in Northern California, as the woman who had anonymously revealed that during a high school party in the early 1980s, a stumbling drunk Kavanaugh attempted to rape her, pinning her on a bed, groping her and covering her mouth to silence her after she screamed in the hope that someone downstairs would hear her.

Ford further states that Mark Judge, a friend and classmate of Kavanaugh’s, stood across the room laughing “maniacally” before he jumped on top of them, she tried unsuccessfully to wriggle free and then Judge jumped on them again, sending all three of them tumbling.

“I thought he might inadvertently kill me,” The WaPo quoted Ford as saying. “He was trying to attack me and remove my clothing.”

Ford’s account is detailed, compelling and truthful, according to a polygraph test, and all the more so as the White House rushes to try to prop up a nomination that has quickly descended into turmoil with a Senate Judiciary Committee vote to approve Kavanaugh scheduled for Thursday thrown into doubt as the first Republican defectors are slinking out of the shadows.

The political and social trends that have become Kavanaugh nomination lightning rods are powerful: Read more

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Article 2: Why The GOP Should Confirm Kavanaugh In Spite Of This Last-Minute Accusation

-Source-The Federalist-

By David Marcus

SEPTEMBER 17, 2018

Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s September surprise exploded yesterday as Christine Blasey Ford, a professor in California, came forward as the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault in 1981. The Washington Post broke the tale she was apparently reluctant to tell. With Kavanaugh about to swing the court to fascism, according to the left, well, her reluctance relented. Now we must decide how the Senate should react to this last-gasp attack.

The answer is pretty simple: He should be confirmed. For whatever reason, Feinstein decided that these allegations should remain under wraps even from other Democrats during the hearing process. That was the time Kavanaugh and witnesses could have been confronted by these allegations. But no, Feinstein waited, and threw this grenade into the final moments of his nomination.

Even the left finds this approach completely bankrupt, as Rebecca Traister tweeted here:

Rebecca Traister

· Sep 14, 2018

The woman alleges that Kavanaugh and a friend “held her down, and that he attempted to force himself on her” and that they “turned up music that was playing in the room to conceal the sound of her protests.”

Rebecca Traister

@rtraister

DiFi reportedly sat on this in part bc she thought objections should not be “personal.” Which recalls Joe Biden and how he approached the Hill allegations against Thomas. And also should make us see how much has NOT changed about attitudes about assault, harassment.

10:54 AM - Sep 14, 2018

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Let’s break down the allegation. Ford claims that at a party, the location and date of which she can’t recall, Kavanaugh and Mark Judge were in a room where Kavanaugh pinned her down, attempted to disrobe her, covered her mouth while she tried to scream, and then they fell off the bed. She retreated to a bathroom then left the house.

If true, the allegation describes a sexual assault. Ford says the first time she ever told anyone about it was decades later in couple’s therapy, in 2012, when she recounted the attack. Her therapist has notes to prove she made the claim at that time, although the notes differ from Ford’s current claims about the number of attackers. Although the therapist’s notes also do not name Kavanaugh, Ford’s husband says she named him to her husband in 2012.

This is a form of corroboration, and a serious one. Those who say these claims were fabricated to derail Kavanaugh’s nomination have to deal with the fact that the claims were stated long before his nomination. On the other hand, the therapist’s notes don’t name Kavanaugh. Perhaps more importantly, these allegations lay dormant for 30 years before they appeared on a therapist’s couch .Read more