Dr. Ford could have single-handedly saved every woman in America from the specter of unwanted pregnancies and births, and saved generations of women coming up from the same. That's millions and millions and millions of women whose right to control their own bodies would have been saved.
I cannot think of a better reason to lie about the man who could make it happen.
On the family issue, an article form the uber-respectable Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.81e383f71df5
I'd say the most likely explanation is that they know her too well. It's possible she's a fantasist. For all the wonderful good of the #MeToo movement, it's exactly the sort of thing that attracts con artists and fantasists, who ruin it for the multitudes who are telling the truth.
These are my thoughts exactly. In fact, I had this very same article ready to post and comment on but J posted it first. I realized after that she wasn't going to hear my comments, which were what you just said here.I'm stunned that you can read that article and come up with "they know her too well" as the most likely explanation for why her family is not publicly supporting her. If anything, the article leans toward the conjecture that her family is deeply concerned with their status in the community that they have spent their entire lives in.
Here are my unsubstantiated thoughts. I believe Ford's basic allegations. I believe that Kavanaugh did the things she said he did, but I do not know, because I wasn't there, whether she was in the danger she thought she was in. I believe she thought she was going to be raped and was severely traumatized but I don't know if Kavanaugh intended to rape her. Giving a 17 year old the benefit of the doubt: maybe he was really drunk and thought she'd go along with having sex with him but when she started screaming he put his hand over her mouth. Maybe he really doesn't remember anything about it now. Maybe for him it was just another gathering where he had too much to drink.
If Kavanaugh would have admitted that he regularly drank to extreme intoxication in his younger years, did not remember this event at all, and contritely agreed that this kind of behavior would be completely unacceptable, I could look at him as a man that outgrew the obnoxious punk persona he had in his younger days (an opinion I'm basing on the recollections of people other than Ford who knew him then) to become an upstanding and admirable citizen. But that's not what happened. Instead, he was belligerent and politically biased. He proved himself unfit for the position by lying under oath.
I truly hope that my response did not come across as bashing, if it did I apologize that was not my intent. I simply wanted to have a conversation regarding the "details". I think that we agree on many points and was interested in how we came to such different conclusions.Life really is too short to go be batting back and forth over this, I have a busy night shift ahead and absolutely no time to read the looong, loong responses. I have no interest at all in bashing my head against a brick wall and no need at all to convince others that I might be right, or that I have a point, or whatever. People think what they think, and bashing back and forth here over it is one of the biggest wastes of time I can think of. I'll just end up repeating what I've already written. To give examples, someone just asked what she would have to gain. I already said what she would have to gain. She gets to save US womenkind from unwanted pregnancies. She achieves her aim as an activist. Those gains are HUGE. And someone said that false accusations are rare. I already said that exact thing. This is a very different case from - well, almost every other case. False accusations are rare, but see the Rolling Stone story. (I already said that, too!) And see the Duke lacrosse story. It's rare but it happens, and given what was at stake, I do not think the activist idea is crazy at all. Remember how taken in everyone was over Rolling Stone?
I also think it's odd that she can't remember a single thing about the location of the party. Not even the neighborhood. She had one beer. Surely she can remember the location. I went to parties 35 years ago and while I couldn't give you the address, I could lead you there. Absolutely. And they didn't really know each other. Maybe by sight form a distance. They went to separate high schools.
I found his testimony credible. Imagine how someone who had been falsely accused of assault in front of the world might sound, someone who had been put under great stress and stood to lose the highlight of his career over it. Well, they might sound just as outraged as he did. And he never one called her a liar. He said she had made a genuine mistake.
I hope there is a full and proper investigation. I hope no stone is left unturned in terms of interviewing the people who were around at that time.
Why have we not heard form her family? Why have the parents whose house it was not come forward? Why do NONE of her four named friends remember any such party?
And meanwhile, the future of abortion rights in the United States hung in the balance. This was an accusation that was just too convenient for me, and there are too many holes in her account.
Telephone asked me and I answered. This is my last word on the matter!
Telephone, thank you for your simple and gracious response.
I have a friend who was raped as a teen. When in tears she told her mother, her mother very sternly told her to Never tell anyone what happened to her. It was a acquantince who did it. She was also from a wealthy family. People don't always react the way you think, or feel they should, including the people who should be protecting you.
I was going to stay away from this thread, but you've asked me a question and I shall answer. I wasn't going to be forthright about what I really think regarding the BK issues, but since you've asked me, I will give you a straight answer.
Yes, I would believe the people in your scenario above. Yes, I think they should come forward after 30 years. Yes, the priest should lose his job. Yes, I have always believed every woman who says she's been assaulted. While false accusations happen, they're rare, and most women wouldn't dream of making up such a thing.
So why don't I believe Christine Ford? Because I think she's a political activist. I strongly suspect that because of the timing.
If she is an activist, the gains for her cause are HUGE. Look at said timing. A man who could roll back abortion rights is about to be elected to the Supreme Court and SUDDENLY a woman accuses him, after decades of an unblemished record. Doesn't anyone think that this is a tad suspicious?
If she is a political activist, exactly the same as "Sabrina" was from Rolling Stone magazine, then in her mind she's helping to save hundreds of thousands of women from the burden of unwanted pregnancies. A laudable aim which I can understand, but you can't go around accusing innocent people and ruining their lives. That's against the law.
The four friends she names have no memory of the party where she was apparently assaulted. Turns out that she alluded to the incident in a therapy session in 2012, but she didn't name Brett Kavanaugh. She says she never coached anyone in a polygraph session, but a colleague saw her do just that. She says she has trouble flying and is claustrophobic, but the evidence bears neither of these things out. The very left-wing Globe newspaper is troubled by the way none of the four friends remember that party. It's not just me. In addition, no one else on the planet seems to remember such a gathering around that time. At all. In addition, her family has not supported her. We haven't heard a word from them.
The Rolling Stone "victim" was fine with throwing about six people totally under the bus because of her political aim of drawing attention to the problem of rape culture. There are such activists out there. I think Christine Ford is one of them, and it was the first thing I thought of because of the timing, before I knew anything else.
This is not your run-of-the-mill accusation involving two ordinary average citizens. The accused has the power to make abortion illegal. The stakes were HUGE. Absolutely HUGE. I actually would have been more surprised if no one had come forward with such an accusation in a desperate bid to stop the court being entirely controlled by the right and by anti-abortion activists.
I'm firmly pro-choice and I can understand the allure of trying everything you can think of to stop someone getting elected who will have the power to make abortion illegal. That. Is. Huge. But I'm against people ruining others' lives to achieve political aims.
If I turn out to be wrong, I'll be very sorry. I've always believed every other woman who reports an assault. But the timing of the accusation and the very nature of the things that are at stake make this a unique accusation. It's a safe game for her to play because no one can prove any lies after this long.
If she's telling the truth, and BK did do it, to deny outright ever being at that party is a VERY risky strategy for him. Think about it. If everything she says is true, he would not have denied ever being there because others would remember him there. He would have said he was there but they were fooling around, he was there but he remembers her making out with someone else, or some other watered-down version. To deny any such party at all, if true, is a very high-risk strategy.
That Rolling Stone article showed us that female activists willing to say they've been raped to achieve lofty aims do exist. I'd call them agitators rather than activists, but there you go.
I don't expect people will like my suspicions very much, and I am not going to spend the next five hours verbally boxing with people on here to dissect and defend every minutiae of what I've said. I think she's an activist. Well, Telephone, you asked me and I answered.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...8/kavanaugh-ford-question-dodge-hearing-chart
This is why I find her more credible than him! It is easy to make excuses for his temperament when claiming he is outraged at being falsely accused, but it doesn't explain his dodging questions.
Truth be told, I do believe him that he doesn't remember the incident. I am sure that it was just one of many drunken parties for him.
You make good pints, cmd, as does everyone.
Tekate, upthread I responded to Monnie's questions about what I meant about being an activist. Short version: In this context, I mean in the Rolling-Stone-magazine sense.
My hope is that the Democrats make a good showing in the midterms and that they carry out a proper investigation. We can only conjecture, and I think it is very wrong that the country has been left to conjecture seeing as how we're talking about the highest court in the land.
Okay I will go back up and find it !!!!
I read today probably in the Times that respect for the highest court is diminishing..
I completely agree and think that it is a very sad state we are in. This was pushed thru without being thoroughly investigated. If I were accused of something that I knew I did not do, I would be demanding that my name be cleared. His refusal to ask for an investigation is very telling in my opinion.Yes, I should think it is, what with serious allegations not taken seriously, an appointment shoved through when it should have been put on hold pending a thorough investigation, and the resulting possibility that we have a sexual harasser as a judge in the highest court of the land.
The government's handling of this affair has made a mockery of our highest court. God knows what people in other countries must think of us. They're probably all
Shall I post the link?
I haven't been involved in the thread but I saw a video clip posted on facebook of part of the ceremony (I think!) and BK's interaction with his wife and child in front of Trump. His wife looks very uncomfortable.
Shall I post the link?
Yeah- he was pushing her and pulling her. It was bizarre.
I hadn't seen that, but I did notice he kept kissing his younger daughter while he ignored his older daughter, as if she didn't need his affection. At the end, he shook her hand. I could understand his doing that is she had been a boy, just for form's sake, not because it is not all right to hug one's son, but not with one's daughter.
AGBF
As always, we can expect empathy and dignity from youThanks to this whole fiasco. The Reps. will gain 2-3 extra Senate seats.