Hers was a heartfelt, nervous testimony. Her voice was cracking, she swallowed frequently, but based on what I saw, she was not lying. Ford talked of what she remembered and what she didn’t – the room she was pushed into, the bed she was forced on, Kavanaugh on top of her. Her description of Kavanaugh putting his hand across her mouth so that she had great trouble breathing – and thinking she might die, -- was something I could identify with. The most incredible memory for her was the “uproarious laughter” of Brett Kavanaugh and his Georgetown Prep friend, Mark Judge, while they were trying to rape her.
Just another conquest to them?
I take my little dog for a walk, and the day before the hearings I stopped to talk with my neighbor, C. He asked whether I was going to watch the hearings. “Of course, I said. I am anxious to hear what our Palo Alto resident, Christine Blasley Ford, says.” I was also intensely interested in who our new Supreme Court Justice would be.
C. looked at me and said, “But why did she wait 36 years to announce she had been sexually assaulted. I don’t understand the wait. She’s just doing it now. It may be a set-up”
“C., you don’t understand women,” I responded. “When this happens to a woman, as it once happened to me in a different fashion, I couldn’t tell my parents. I felt guilty and embarrassed and like I did something wrong.”
“She should have said something earlier”, he replied. And then I asked, “What about all those middle-aged men who had been abused by priests? They didn’t talk about what happen for 20 or 30 years. Why aren’t you criticizing them for their delay?”
C. walked away without looking at me or my dog. I don’t know what he was thinking or what he thought about today’s hearings. I don’t know what some Americans think after the hearings. I don’t know if Dr. Ford’s testimony touched their hearts.
I don’t know if the Senate is going to confirm Kavanaugh. His visceral anger during his afternoon testimony on Thursday frightened me – I watched his face and at times it looked like he was going to explode. The quiet, honest testimony of Dr. Ford turned into an ugly partisan hearing, and it wasn’t nice.
The only known person in the room when Ford was assaulted was Kavanaugh’s high school friend, Mark Judge. He has said he didn’t know anything, wouldn’t appear, and this week was at some beach in the country. He said nothing, but needs to be subpoenaed. There must be an FBI investigation; I hope it’s not too late.
I feel bad about what happened in America today – the anger, the terrible partisanship. One of the two interviewees was lying. We need to know which one before we appoint Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I want America to be better than what happened at the Senate Judicial Committee hearings on Thursday, September 27, 2018.
