Life is not fair -- and neither is the Kavanaugh confirmation process
SAN DIEGO -- Let's be fair. The last thing the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation process has been about over the past week is fairness.
The process has been dark, dirty and dysfunctional. Worst of all, it has also been profoundly unfair -- and to more than one person.
A lot of folks have talked about the idea of fairness since Kavanaugh was accused of sexual misconduct in an incident that allegedly occurred more than three decades ago when the Supreme Court nominee and the alleged victim were both in their teens.
Attorneys for Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who brought the accusation, had said that their client would address the Senate Judiciary Committee out of a sense of civic duty.
That narrative barely survived one news cycle. The story then became that Ford would not testify until the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched an inquiry.
But an inquiry into what? Certainly not what may or may not have happened in the 1980s. That's ridiculous, especially since no federal crime was involved. Surely what some Democrats are hoping for is that Kavanaugh speaks to investigators and to the Senate committee -- and that the statements don't match.
So instead of investigating a crime, the real objective would be to manufacture one.
When Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa -- who had invited Ford to address the panel -- refused to go along with the call for an FBI investigation and set a deadline for the accuser to confirm her testimony, her lawyers said rushing the process was unfair.
"The committee's stated plan to move forward with a hearing that has only two witnesses is not a fair or good faith investigation," said attorney Lisa Banks.
If Ford doesn't testify, and simply leaves her disturbing accusation out there with no accountability -- like, oh, say an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times -- this would be unfair to the nominee. So says a moderate Republican senator whose vote could be crucial.
...continued
