Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings were contentious upon nomination to the U.S Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit by President Bush in 2003. After a series of negotiations between Democratic and Republican Senators, he was confirmed in May 2006. His confirmation was delayed on grounds of partisanship. Now, he has been nominated to the Supreme Court. And a lot of accusations of sexual assaults have sprung up. One of the focus groups in favor of Kavanaugh is of the opinion that he is a saint. One of the women is quoted to have said that everybody who has known Brett Kavanaugh talks good about him.
Prior to his being publicly accused of sexual assault, most of the Senators on the left wing were still going to vote ‘No’ to his confirmation. Kavanaugh, like most conservative Republicans, is known for his belief that a woman shouldn’t have total control as to what she allows her body to go through; he does not support abortion rights, rights to sexual preferences, and he even believes that a President should be ‘above the Law’. The Democrats have been accused of tactically delaying his confirmation until the Elections, that way, if they get to have the majority in Congress, they can have the choice of bringing in their own nominee. This is Politics, I have no doubt that the drama we have seen in the past few days has some political motivations and undertone, but aside the sexual assault allegations, Brett Kavanaugh’s views sighted above cannot be overlooked. Those are serious issues.
On the 27th of September, 2018, Americans and indeed people all over the world listened to Dr. Christine M Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s testimonies. At the end of Dr. Ford’s testimony, everyone including the committee members on the right side of the aisle believed her. Their response went from ‘believing this was a witch-hunt contorted by the Democrats’ to ‘there is no doubt something horrible happened to Dr. Ford many years ago, but it was not carried out by Brett Kavanaugh’. Dr. Ford went through the rigorous questioning with grace and calmness. And the fact that she was very honest about what she could or could not remember, made her testimony so believable.
Brett Kavanaugh, on the other hand, started out his testimony with so much rage. Unlike the people who have said they were disappointed about his anger, I am not. He should be angry, he had the right to be angry. Considering what these allegations have done to his image and that of his family these past weeks? But, was I disappointed at his outbursts and the way he answered some of the questions? Yes, I was. I saw a man with a sense of entitlement, who couldn’t even understand why he should be made to go through a hearing. The job should have just been given to him. Many have argued that his stories were inconsistent, but one thing he didn’t lie about was the fact that he liked beer. He probably mentioned this fact more than he did about any other thing during the hearing. Now, someone who likes beer as Kavanaugh did, should have had incidents of over drinking, but no, he totally denied this.
Two days before the hearing, President Trump, on Twitter, said this about his nominee – “The Democrats are playing a high-level CON GAME in their vicious effort to destroy a fine person. It is called the politics of destruction. Behind the scene, the Dems are laughing. Pray for Brett Kavanaugh and his family!”. Like I said earlier, no doubt the democrats maybe pursuing this with some political undertone, it still does not suppress the fact that about 36 years ago a young woman, was once pinned down and sexually assaulted. Some have argued that had this nominee been brought by some other president, the fight wouldn’t be this vicious. Well, I would agree. A candidate with this sort of audacious entitlement may not have been selected by some other President. Assuming all white men do not have this entitlement mentality. A candidate picked by some other president may have had the decency to step down in the midst of all these. And it has never made sense to me why he didn’t want an FBI investigation. I know that if I was accused of something which I know didn’t happen, I would be the one calling for any form of investigation to clear my name.
Americans voted for Trump, so there is no doubt that he would nominate people like him to be in positions of influence. Elections have consequences. They made a choice, now they are living with it.