The Kavanaugh Hearing Is a Catastrophe for the Grand Old Party

Caption: I wish I had a photo I could use of Judge Brett Kavanaugh or Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, but since I don't, and I also don't have a photo or graphic of the scales of justice, I'll put up a photo of myself feeling calm and blissful riding next to the Mississippi River in 2017. I felt anything but calm and blissful after watching Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and other elderly Republican senators throw shade on three women alleging sexual misconduct by Judge Kavanaugh. I am enraged by Republican senators like Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah, the most sexist state in the country after Arkansas), who said, "I don't know her, but she's mixed up... mistaken." If you don't know her, Sen. Hatch, how do you know she's "mixed up"?

"Women will bury the Republican Party for the next 20 years," I told a conservative Republican on the Amy Meyers bicycle ride we went on to support cancer research through the Gilda Radner foundation. He seemed troubled to hear it, as well he should be. Women are tired of being dismissed and ridiculed when we allege sexual assault. We've had it up to here with not being believed! #TimesUp!

Chuck Grassley, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, kept interrupting Democratic senators and trying to control the hearing, but he didn't succeed because of the integrity of two men: Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) and retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Despite the worst partisan divide in the country since the Civil War, which Sen. Flake alluded to, Senators Coons and Flake have managed to be friends. They talked to each other during the hearings. Jeff Flake, already concerned about the unknowns in the allegations of three different women of sexual misconduct by Judge Kavanaugh, voted Kavanaugh out of the committee on condition that there be an FBI investigation of the sexual misconduct allegations "limited in time and scope."

The overt absence of the sole eyewitness to Ford's assault: Kavanaugh's boyhood friend Mark Judge, who was in the bedroom where the alleged sexual assault took place, was stunning. The Senate could have subpoenaed him to appear, but chose not to. Why? Now Mark Judge has offered to testify to the FBI "confidentially." Why should his testimony be confidential? He could be an accomplice and criminally liable. There's no statute of limitations in Maryland for attempted rape and Maryland law enforcement officials have promised to look into Ford's allegation.

Sen. Flake agreed to vote Kavanaugh out of the Judiciary Committee but would not agree to vote for him on the floor unless there was a weeklong FBI investigation of two women's sexual misconduct allegations. Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Joe Manchin (D-WV) joined him in saying they wouldn't say they'd vote yes unless there was an FBI investigation.

According to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on ABC's "This Week," the FBI investigation will be limited in scope to the allegations of only two of the three women who have stepped forward to allege Kavanaugh has committed acts of drunken sexual misconduct. Hari Srinavasan on Sunday morning's public TV News Hour confirmed the limited scope of the FBI investigation, which is appalling.

Julie Swetnick's allegations of gang rape should also be investigated but won't be, according to the Guardian. In Swetnick's interview, she claimed "in a sworn statement, that Kavanaugh and Judge engaged in lewd behavior with young women at high school parties, and alleged the two placed drugs or alcohol in punch in order to inebriate women so they could be 'gang raped' by other partygoers."

I remember my resident assistants, Mimi Herwald and her roommate, warning me at another Ivy League school, Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, not to attend a certain frat party. I, a shy country girl of 17 on scholarship, was grateful for their advice. I never found out what happened at those parties, but given what my sister told me about what almost happened to her when she entered Yale as soon as it went coed, I can only imagine.

Brett Kavanaugh belonged to Yale fraternity Delta Kappa Epsilon, suspended after he graduated for five years for making frat brothers chant, "no means yes; yes means anal." Known as the "white football fraternity," Delta Kappa Epsilon was founded in 1844 and both Presidents Bush belonged to "Deke," as the fraternity is called. Women are still warned about Deke and say it hasn't changed since it reopened.

The frat boy culture can last a lifetime. Have you ever met an aging frat boy? I have. They don't change. I've seen the old lecherous men drape themselves all over much younger, pretty women as though they were still 20. I don't know why the women put up with it. In fact, at 20 women shouldn't put up with the drapery.

James Roche, Kavanaugh's roommate at Yale, said that Kavanaugh drank to excess and was frequently belligerent and aggressive when drunk. Roche was friends with Debbie Ramirez, found her to be honest and credible, and believes that Kavanaugh was capable of exposing himself to her as Ramirez alleged. Kavanaugh certainly was belligerent and angry during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

When Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asked Kavanaugh if he'd ever drunk so much that he blacked out, he aggressively asked her, "Have you?" He later apologized, but his belligerent question showed his misogynistic tendency to try to shock and bully a woman. He didn't speak to any of the male senators that way. He also refused to answer a single direct question from any senator. Instead he would filibuster, cry, and rant instead about a vast Democratic conspiracy and "revenge on behalf of the Clintons" in a bizarre way (those facial expressions!) that absolutely confirmed his lack of judicial temperament.

If for no other reason, his confirmation should be rejected because he believes that Pres. Trump is above the law, which is obviously why Trump appointed him as the nominee. Kavanaugh has opined that the president can't be subpoenaed or prosecuted while he is president, affirming Trump's imperial presidency. Kavanaugh is the most blatantly partisan nominee to the Supreme Court ever nominated. His self-pity, aggression toward Sen. Klobuchar, and filbustering/ranting instead of answering direct questions directly were only relieved once when he finally admitted that he liked beer when he was a kid and he likes beer now.

Not only will the Supreme Court of the United States be disrespected and questionable as a nonpartisan institution if this entitled, spoiled rich boy is confirmed to the court, but as I told the conservative Republican man in Muscatine yesterday, women like me who vote will bury the Party of Trump, himself a notorious sexual predator, for the next 20 years.