There is a storm hovering over Washington right now.
Of course, it always seems that way, but this one is bringing down two people’s lives in the process.
Jonathan Turley, political commentator and professor at George Washington University Law School, spoke Wednesday at the Brazosport College 50th Anniversary Luncheon at the Dow Academic Center. His presentation covering the history and politics of the U.S. Supreme Court had been planned long before Christine Blasey Ford was a name in national headlines.
For those out of the loop, Ford is a professor and a research psychologist in California who claims to have had an unwanted sexual encounter with the current nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh.
She is expected to speak in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee today, as is Kavanaugh, in what will be a glorified “he said, she said” drama.
There will be no winners. The lives of these two people already are being torn apart.
“My family and I have been the target of constant harassment and death threats. I have been called the most vile and hateful names imaginable,” Ford said in a written testimony released Wednesday. “My family and I were forced to move out of our home. Since September 16, my family and I have been living in various secure locales, with guards.”
Kavanaugh, in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, fought back on the allegations from Ford and others against him. He has no other choice given stepping aside will leave him forever sullied, as Turley pointed out.
“These are smears, pure and simple,” Kavanaugh wrote. “And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country. Such grotesque and obvious character assassination — if allowed to succeed — will dissuade competent and good people of all political persuasions from service.”
The tragedy of the nomination process and today’s hearing is how the situation has nothing to do with them, instead being the byproduct of an increasingly divided political system that has sunk its claws into the Supreme Court.
“I feel sorry for both of them, because they’ve both entered that strange universe of being a prop in political play. I don’t think either side really cares that much about them,” Turley said.
The Democrats have sided with Ford and the Republicans have sided with President Trump’s nominee. There are a few people in between who might be swayed by what is said during today’s hearing, but the political lines have been drawn. Minds have been made up regardless what emerges from the hearing.
As Turley pointed out, one of these two people has lied about the situation. Someone has created a story where there wasn’t one. But that’s where the country is politically, hanging on every word of what amounts to a tabloid gossip story.
There will be a ninth justice, and whichever way this goes, the story will largely be forgotten in a year. But nobody is backing down.
“Kavanaugh has no exit strategy,” Turley said. “People are talking today, ‘Will he withdraw?’ I don’t think that’s an option. If he withdraws, his name will never be cleared.”
And that’s because this story has nothing to do with Ford or Kavanaugh. It’s about politics.
Neither person will leave unmarked by this meeting, and that is a shame for a country in which truth has taken a back seat.
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This editorial was written by Alec Woolsey, assistant managing editor of The Facts.