by Sandy » Sat Oct 06, 2018 10:51 am
I don't know that you could put the accuracy or veracity of Dr. Blasey Ford's testimony into percentages. If you look at the risks she took to come forward, including the threats of angry trump deplorables against her and her family which forced her out of her house, the penalty for perjury in a senate hearing, and the overwhelming emotional struggle of re-living a traumatic experience, it would be understandable if she never mentioned it again and didn't bother with it. The obstacles and stigma that go with any woman coming forward with testimony of this sort is exactly why most don't, and why many wait so long. But all of that considered, it affirms the veracity of her testimony.
If she were the only one, then there might be a legitimate appeal to her lack of memory or to a much more politically centered motivation. But there are others, and all combined, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 people who were either direct witnesses, or able to corroborate the pattern of Kavanaugh's behavior, including staff from Georgetown Prep and teaching staff from Yale.
Not much progress has been made in this area since the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas days, when an all-male senate committee simply ignored a pile of corroborating evidence and decided that it was OK to put a justice on the Supreme Court even if he had a long standing reputation as a rear-end grabber with a propositioning potty mouth. Clearly, women who are victims of sexual assault have no advocates in the justice system, nor in the conservative Evangelical branch of Christianity in America. All of those venues think that whatever a man wants to do to a woman is just fine. That is the message that this appointment sends.