By David K. Shipler
We
Americans are swimming in lies—lies from an entire advertising industry, lies from
the top of our government on down, lies from the grassroots of hateful
partisans, lies from such august institutions as the Catholic Church, lies from
Fox News and other purveyors of propaganda. And on, and on, and on.
This Thursday, the Senate Judiciary
Committee will treat us to another gargantuan lie: the deception that we are
seeing a truth-seeking process because Professor Christine Blasey Ford will be
heard accusing Judge Brett Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her when she was 15.
In reality, however, virtually all the members of the committee, both
Republicans and Democrats, have already decided the case. The minority
Democrats will credit her account, and the majority Republicans will not. She
is on trial, as are most women who finally gather the courage and self-esteem
to speak out about their abuse at the hands of prominent men.
And this will be something of a
show trial, with a Republican-hired lawyer—a woman, of course, for the sake of “optics”—appointed
to question her, to poke holes in her story, perhaps to rattle her enough to
make her come across on national television as incoherent, confused, and unreliable.
There is no hint in the Republican-led committee of any interest in getting to
the bottom of the allegation. If there were, the FBI or a committee-organized, impartial
investigatory staff armed with subpoenas would have been assigned to the
matter. And the one alleged witness, Mark Judge, would be forced to testify
under oath.
The Republicans’ refusal to call
Judge pulls back the curtain on the farcical charade. They are obviously afraid
that Judge, who Ford says was present when Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed,
ground his body against her, covered her mouth when she screamed, and tried to
remove her clothes, might suddenly remember the incident in sworn testimony.
There’s nothing like the threat of a perjury charge to focus your mind.
But this is political theater, practically
devoid of due process. A methodical and intellectually honest effort to muster
the facts and arrive at a conclusion is not legally required in the Senate as
it is in criminal court. And so it will not be pursued, because it might interfere
with Republicans’ steamrolling campaign to politicize the Supreme Court in
their image.
