It’s the lying
Historian Claire Potter says it’s the lying at least as much as the sexual assaults.
The phrase “he said, she said” is often used to characterize the opaqueness of a sex crime: Without a direct witness, someone must be lying. But who? Is it equally likely that the accuser and the accused will lie? Conservatives don’t think so. Kavanaugh, as Thomas did, has categorically denied all charges, and his supporters have characterized Blasey as the agent of a smear campaign orchestrated to keep Kavanaugh off the court.
But Blasey’s story resonates with feminists and, in a change from 1991, with male Democratic senators — some of whom are former prosecutors shaped by the legal world that feminists made. Blasey’s supporters are strongly implying that Kavanaugh is lying and that Republicans are determined to keep Blasey — and possibly a second and a third accuser — from disproving these lies.
That so many people are focused on the question of lying instead of the underlying acts is the result of a fairly recent historical development. Lying has, of course, been a staple of American public life for centuries. But the exposure of lies, especially when those lies intersected with politicians’ dissolute private lives, became a staple of the new political journalism that emerged from the ashes of Watergate in 1974.
That’s what ended Gary Hart’s political career, she explains.
The destruction of Hart’s candidacy and the appetite of Americans for televised scandal set the stage for the Hill-Thomas hearings in a way that a decade of conversation about sexual harassment, a word that had entered the law in 1979, had not. And yet the question of whether Thomas had, as Harvard sociologist Orlando Patterson put it, a “Rabelasian” sensibility that Hill was turning to political purposes was inseparable from whether he was lying about what had occurred.
Patterson speculated that Thomas probably had said and done the things that Hill had described — and that he had lied about it. In an op-ed in the New York Times, Patterson defended those alleged lies. “Judge Thomas was justified in denying making the remarks,” he wrote, “even if he had in fact made them, not only because the deliberate displacement of his remarks made them something else but on the utilitarian moral grounds that any admission would have immediately incurred a self-destructive and grossly unfair punishment.”
Grossly unfair? To be denied a seat on the Supreme Court he’d never deserved in the first place? Unfair to say a liar, which in this case meant also a perjurer, should not be on the Supreme Court? Let’s not forget why Bush nominated Thomas at all: it was because he felt it wouldn’t look too swell to put a white guy in Thurgood Marshall’s seat but he couldn’t find an outstanding Republican black guy so he had to go with a mediocre one. (There was of course no question of putting a woman in that seat, black or white – we already had the woman!)
In hindsight, it seems fairly clear that Thomas’s supporters — two of whom, Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) and Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), are still on the Judiciary Committee — knew that he had sexually harassed Anita Hill and other women. Journalist David Brock, who famously characterized Hill as “a little bit nutty and a little bit slutty” during the hearings, later admitted that he had not only lied about Hill as part of a coordinated effort to protect Thomas but that he had helped Thomas to silence another potential accuser.
And Joe Biden also helped to silence the other potential accuser.
As the accusations against Kavanaugh pile up, it seems likely that some, if not all, Senate Republicans and President Trump, suspect — or even know — that Kavanaugh has done what his accusers say he has done. And it seems clear that many Republicans are embracing Patterson’s approach, arguing that even if Kavanaugh is lying about his dissolute youth, who can blame him given how disproportionate the punishment would be over a crime from decades ago?
Except not getting a very important public official job that’s all about law and truth and integrity is not a punishment. No doubt Kavanaugh would be very disappointed (as so many teenage girls were no doubt disappointed to find themselves being raped by classmates), but people are disappointed not to get jobs all the time. I see no reason at all to treat Kavanaugh’s potential disappointment as more important than anyone else’s, let alone as a “punishment” let alone a disproportionate one.
Republicans are still determined to push the Kavanaugh nomination through, despite the fact that a growing number of journalists and attorneys are dedicating themselves to finding evidence to support Blasey’s claims. The question is whether any potential victory will be worth the cost. Kavanaugh may end up on the Court, but he’ll be tainted and delegitimized in the eyes of millions of Americans. Is that how Brett Kavanaugh wants to go down in history?
Yes, it apparently is.
Of course, that idea of lying is what makes this interesting. Democrats have gone down for lying, and Clinton’s impeachment centered a lot around his lying. But the interesting thing is that the Dems were, for the most part, dealing with consensual sexual acts between consenting adults (even accepting the possibility that Lewinsky couldn’t be consensual because of disparate power, but with that caveat, most women can’t be truly said to be consenting, since men in general have disparate power over women in general).
The Repubs, on the other hand, who seem to get away with it, are not consensual. Anita Hill did not consent to being sexually harassed by Clarence Thomas. The girls that Roy Moore messed with were not adults, and therefore unable to give consent to an adult male. Kavanaugh also was not dealing in consensual sex, either in his teenage exploits or the more recently alleged college exploits.
So it really is about the lying to most people, and that is the problem. I don’t hold with lying, but I also believe that a person’s consensual adult sexual life is their own business, and should not be part and parcel of the election/impeachment process.
But rape? No, Kavanaugh is not about the lying, it is about the rape. Rape – a crime. But not just a crime, a crime against another human being, a human being with less power, a human being who is denied their own bodily autonomy by the choice of another human being to rape. A crime which deprives human beings of their peace of mind, their happiness, their confidence. And even if rape itself did not occur (no penetration), it is still a crime – sexual assault. And it is targeting a specific group, a group historically oppressed and disenfranchised, a group that in general has less power and less ability to affect change. And those excusing it should ask themselves – would they excuse such a thing if it happened to them? Would they feel it was just juvenile antics? Would they be willing to sit in their living room for the rest of their life watching the news talk about the person who had perpetrated this act on them, and realizing that this man was now in one of the most desired jobs in the entire country, making decisions that affect the life of the victim (and everyone else) and nothing being done about it – except, of course, mocking and shaming the ones who bravely came forward? We all know the answer to that – if they were the victim, they would scream from the rafters until the perp was shamed and censured. They would not stand for it. But if it’s a woman?
The problem often is couched as lying, and in the case of Gary Hart and Bill Clinton, I think that’s reasonable. In the case of consensual sex, I think it’s reasonable to say it’s about the lying. But in a case of sexual assault, it is not reasonable. That tells women that they don’t matter, it’s okay what a guy does to them as long as he doesn’t lie about it. (And a lot of people have suggested that it would have been okay if he would just admit it and say he’s learned from experience, he’s sorry, and he won’t do it again – note: THIS DOES NOT MAKE IT OKAY).
If Kavanaugh gave two flying fucks about the integrity and legitimacy of the Supreme Court, he would have voluntarily and publicly withdrawn himself from the nomination as soon as it came out that his selection was the result of back-room negotiations between Kennedy and Trump during a time when the administration had an active case in front of the Court (along with one or two others that it had a particularly strong view on). Even if Kennedy has superhuman levels of compartmentalization, preventing his vote from being swayed even a fraction of a hair’s width by those other considerations, the mere existence of those negotiations forever leaves all the decisions made during that period marred with a big, ugly asterisk.
But Kavanaugh didn’t even have the spine or integrity to acknowledge the problem, let alone actually do anything about it. So no, I am not shocked in the least at the notion that he’s fine with dragging the SCOTUS’ reputation down into the toxic muck that’s come from President “Drain the Swamp”.
They’ll definitely meet the President and the Congress there.
But those millions of Americans are losers; Kavanaugh and his ilk are the winners, the creme-de-la-creme ‘I got mine and fuck the rest of you’ elite of the Republican-Christian elite. They don’t give a flying fuck what the little people might think, and as for history, isn’t that written by the winners?
Freemage, quite. No Justice appointed during such a partisan, no holds barred and defended at any cost struggle can ever hope to claim impartiality with a straight face. That’s hard enough at the best of times, but such a Justice will forever be tainted by the aggrieved tribalism of it all. They will never be able to truly let it go. Then again, would a party (let’s be honest – it’s always the Republicans) go to the wall like this for a centrist Justice who might behave with honour and try to see things in a fair and even handed way? I suspect not.
[…] a comment by iknklast on It’s the […]
Shouldn’t that read: What he did?
Yes. Let’s not acquiesce to the blame diluting use of passive constructions, especialy when we are discussing the Party of Personal Responsibility.