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Originally Posted by Gráinne
I, like everyone else, has been following this cesspool of a confirmation process since go.
If I have it right, this is partly about Kavanaugh's character, but more broadly, that he is conservative out the yin-yang. If Trump wins re-election in 2020, and with a couple other Justices looking long in the tooth, the broad fear is that he will be in a position to eviscerate Roe v. Wade and shift the Supreme Court for years, way after his term. I hear and can understand that fear.
With that being said, my immediate fear is that Kavanaugh was guilty until proven innocent-by the media, by women (including here), and by Democratic senators on the committee and in the whole Senate body. Of course, no matter his looking-more-inevitable confirmation, his reputation has already been smeared. This has to have been hell on his family, who obviously weren't in the picture when he was 17-18.
I believe something happened to Dr. Ford, just because of the fact that few women (and more than a few men) get out of their teens without some kind of sexual incident against their will, including me. I withhold judgement on Kavanaugh simply because her story changes, and there is no corroborating witnesses or credible evidence to support her story.
And therein lies my fear. If last Thursday is the level of "proof" needed to ruin someone's career and personal life, then let's toss out the judicial system right now. To some, he has a big target called "successful white guy" on his back. That was a lynching, and no, I don't apologize for the strong words. If we as a country have come down to political lynchings, I have great fear indeed.
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Do you really believe what you wrote? Do you actually think that Dr Ford was not credible, and that her accusation was some sort of "political lynching" of an otherwise appropriate candidate to the US Supreme Court?
The way our system works is that the Executive Branch, (the President) nominates candidates for the Judicial Branch to lifetime positions on the Federal bench. The Legislative Branch is charged with giving 'advice and consent' on those nominations. Hearings on a potential jurists are one of the ways we keep checks and balances in place so that one of the three branches of Federal government doesn't become more powerful than the other two. These hearings are supposed to determine not only whether a candidate has adequate understanding of Federal laws and the US Constitution, but also if they would rule impartially, and whether they have the right character and judicial temperament to sit on the Federal bench for the REST OF THEIR LIVES. These hearings are supposed to be thorough. They're supposed to examine a potential jurist's ability to put aside personal animosities and rule impartially. They're supposed to publicly examine a person's character.
Kavanuagh's determination to overturn settled law as it pertains to women's bodies and autonomy is quite alarming, but not disqualifying in my opinion. Trump vowed to nominate judges who would seek to regulate my vagina and deregulate guns. All of his nominees so far fit that bill. It's tragic that our Supreme Court will be slanted so far away from the mainstream, but we knew that was coming when Trump became President.
You are not correct that this is some sort of smear campaign visited upon some hapless man who happens to be white and conservative. If there are any questions or concerns about the prior conduct of a candidate for any Federal judgeship, this is exactly the moment when it's supposed to come up! Why on earth is there a question about this? This is how it's supposed to work. That is, except for the part where the FBI is NOT supposed to be constrained in their investigations, and legislators ARE supposed to consider whether a candidate has ever committed perjury, (Yes, Kavanaugh has done so during these hearings as well as during his hearings when he was fist nominated for his current position), whether a candidate is impartial, (Kavanaugh whined and sputtered about the Clinton's during his raging, intemperate rants on the stand, fer f*cks sake!), and whether or not the candidate has ever committed a crime such as, oh I don't know, SEXUAL ASSAULT!
PS Lynching was one way to MURDER African Americans, (and several Jewish people), during a harrowing and horrible period of time in the US when vicious bigots who saw those people as less than human knew they could literally get away with MURDER. I think it's incredibly insensitive to use that word to describe public allegations of a crime which many people believe one white man committed against one young white girl. Please don't do that again.