Kavanaugh and Trump--Repubs Ready to Swallow and Follow the Leader

To the Editor:

As a Republican member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the well-named Senator Flake made a  decision in that committee to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh for a lifetime position on the Supreme Court.

 Flake, who must live with his initial decision, on second or third thought, proceeded to engineer  a week’s delay before the full Senate vote on Kavanaugh. This will allow for what is being termed a “limited”  FBI investigation. It’s not clear if such an investigation would include allegations by other women who have come forward, or only those facts surrounding Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony regarding Kavanaugh on Thursday.

Senator Flake made no mention of any of this during the hearings. So what jogged the heart and  conscience of this man?   Perhaps it was this now famous elevator encounter.

“Just after Mr. Flake’s announcement, the senator was confronted at a Senate elevator by two crying women who said they had been sexually assaulted.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” one woman said.. . . Don’t look away from me.”

“Mr. Flake stood largely mute, his gaze mainly to the ground, as the women held open the elevator and made their case to no avail.”  But things do seem to change.

Change is unlikely for Lindsay Graham.  (Does he use the elevator or the back stairs?)  Graham is the Republican Senator from South Carolina who has turned from being a bull dog critic of Donald Trump to being his lap dog in search of an appointment as Attorney General.

Graham, some will remember, once spoke of Trump as “the world’s biggest jackass,” “a race-baiting xenophobic religious bigot,” a “kook.”

But now we have Graham’s red-faced howl on Thursday. His bit of theater did catch the truth of how the Republicans on the judiciary committee worked. The proceedings they orchestrated did describe, to use Graham’s own, well rehearsed words, “the most unethical sham since I’ve been [closely following] politics.”

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s courageous testimony on Thursday included her “100%” assurance that Brett Kavanaugh was the boy who forced her on to a bed, groped her body, covered her mouth as she attempted to cry for help, and laughed along with his friend during this attack. She was alone, 15 years old, and the laughter she heard came from these two boys in a locked  room–Brett Kavanaugh and his long time best friend, Mark Judge. 

Will 100% of the Republicans in the Senate be ready to carry Trump’s swamp water nomination of Kavanaugh and dump it into a life time position on the Supreme Court of the United States?

Gary W. Daily

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Reader's Forum Letter in Terre Haute Tribune Star is here:

Readers' Forum, Oct. 2, 2018: Courage meets GOP obstinance