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It was autumn 2018, just over five years ago, when Christine Blasey Ford uttered that unforgettable line. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” she said, referring to the gleeful cackling of a young Brett Kavanaugh as he allegedly drunkenly pinned her down and pawed at her clothes in an attempted assault.
This sentence turned up on protest posters, infographics, it was even stencilled across a stone threshold on the campus at Yale University. But that was then. Today, in a review of Ford’s new memoir, One Way Back, its treatment is less than reverent: the New York Times describes it as “a piece of refrigerator poetry suddenly ringing out in the wood-panelled Hart Senate Office Building”.
One Way Back is a meandering, behind-the-scenes look at Ford’s choice to come forward about the alleged assault, which she said took place at a party in 1982, when she and Kavanaugh were both teenagers. It also functions as an airing of grievances — against the politicians, lawyers, and activists who turned her trauma into a political football, but also against those journalists who promised to tell her side of the story, with inevitably disappointing results: “I’d spend hours upon hours walking them through my story. Then their book would come out, and I’d read it and feel my world turning upside down all over again… it feels like the opposite of the justice you so desperately seek.”
Heavy on family anecdotes and ocean metaphors that serve to remind the reader that Ford is both a mother and a surfer, this memoir suggests a desire to take her story back — if not for the sake of justice, then at least for the satisfaction of having the last word. But nothing in One Way Back approaches the insight nor status of the “indelible in the hippocampus” line. Refrigerator poetry or not, this is the nature of memory: the best moments of our lives are ephemeral, slippery, like trying to capture water in your hand. And the less pleasant the memory, the more vivid it tends to be.
Perhaps this is why I still remember how I felt that week in 2018, as I watched Ford being replaced on the stand by an increasingly agitated Brett Kavanaugh, who blustered and wept and laboured to explain the meaning of, among other things, an Eighties-era joke about butt-chugging. Pages from his high school yearbook had been blown up to poster size for the occasion, like exhibits in a murder trial. It was like a cringe scene from Curb Your Enthusiasm, except without the promised relief of eventually getting to laugh. I turned to my husband.
“Christ, this is embarrassing,” I said.
“For Kavanaugh?”
“For everyone.”
Even then, it was obvious that the did-he-or-didn’t-he question would never be resolved. In my opinion, the likeliest theory remains Katie Herzog’s, that what Ford remembered as a traumatic assault was, to the men in question, more like a dumb party prank on the order of drawing a penis on your friend’s face after he falls asleep. Stupid, yes, and arguably cruel, but not the kind of thing you would necessarily remember unless you happened to be the victim. But, then, the issue of Kavanaugh’s culpability was quickly eclipsed by an absolute circus of rabid frothing partisanship. On his side, there were tears, beers, conspiracy theories. On the opposing team — a unified apparatus consisting of Democratic party politicians, the anti-Trump Resistance, and the employees of every mainstream media organisation — it was a full-blown moral panic.
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SubscribeOh, the tidal wave of misogny, rape excuses and made-up stories about how someone was accused by some harpie that this is going to unleash!
Is this Kat person just some GenAI response to asking “how do I make angry old men feel better about how horrible they are”?
Have we reached peak stupid yet? I’ll just leave this here as a benchmark:
“And if Ford’s testimony was both credible and serious….”
No.
Are people so prone to making up stories?
My take on Ford hasn’t changed in the intervening years: Something very upsetting happened to her when she was 15. Over the years she held an understandable resentment against a certain kind of prep school kid who would do that. Brett Kavanaugh may or may not have been at that party, but in her mind “he’s the type” morphed into “he’s the one.” Then, she had an opportunity to be come the hero in a big national movement to “save democracy” from those deplorables, and she took it.
Ford is a cartoonish liar and fabulist, one of many trotted out by Trump’s panicked yet leviathan political opposition. She deserves every ounce of being kicked to the curb by the DNC after her 15 minutes were up.
amir-joon, never as cartoonish as being fired from the NYTimes after one, short, day…. 🙁
The Brett Kavanaugh hearings were merely political theater with no underlying reality of a foundational moral truth for feminists or the Democrat Party.
One merely need revisit the days of a very young employee named Monica Lewinsky who gave her employer, leering old-man Bill Clinton, blowjobs in the White House Oval Office…while…on the job, as they say. Remember feminist leaders’ robust efforts to denounce Bill’s male predatory behavior toward working subordinates? Here’s feminist journalist Nina Burleigh’s strongly-worded response in those speaking-truth-to-power days:
“At the corner CVS drugstore, inside a fresh stack of Mirabella magazines, there lies an essay I wrote about sex, power and playing cards with Bill Clinton. I described how surprised I was to find that power is seductive, even for a feminist like me. I said I thought that the President had looked at my legs a little longer than was perfectly normal, and I described how that felt (quite flattering, actually).
“Nine in the morning, Monday, July 6. Fire Island. I’m supposed to be on vacation. The phone rings. A friend is calling to tell me that Howard Kurtz, Washington Post media critic and best-selling author, has written about me under the headline ‘A Reporter With Lust in Her Heart.’
“…when he called back, I decided my only defense would be to give him a quote that would knock his socks off. I also wanted to test the Post‘s new “sizzle”- the paper’s post – We Broke the Lewinsky Story advertising hook. So when Howard asked whether I could still objectively cover the President, having found him so attractive, I replied, ‘I would be happy to give him a b*****b [referring to young employee Monica’s blowjobs for Big Dawg Bill] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their Presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.'”
Making proclamations about make-believe ‘theocracies’ in order to defend the most powerful sexual predator of women in the world?
So much for speaking truth to power.
What about Hillary Clinton? She stood by her man, victim-shamed Monica, and even used famous predator-at-large Harvey Weinstein as her bankroller during her Presidential Campaign in 2016 (“it was something that everyone thought made sense” was her defense).
There’s no doubt such behavior will continue to be excused – and swept under the rug – in the future…as long as the predator belongs to the correct political party.
Given that Clinton’s denial of the sordid affair led to a federal investigation and impeachment hearings in which the whole country was made to hear about cigars and stains on a dress, I don’t think it’s accurate to say the Lewinsky deal was “swept under the rug”.
Isn’t convicted sleaze bag Harvey Weinstein some version of a Hollywood liberal? He’s been swept into prison, with a sentence of 23 years. Plenty of men from both parties get away with behavior that ranges from creepy to criminal. But not always and not forever.
I think Clinton’s rampant horndog behavior will affect his historical reputation to some extent, And justly so. Same with Trump.
Fair…I should have been more clear in my post.
I meant “swept under the rug” by progressives and Democrats for the next 20-or-so years….women’s protection from sexual predators be damned.
They (including leading feminists) declared Bill Clinton should only be assessed based on his official actions and the policies he enacted as President, not by his sexual assaults and abuse of women – on or off the job.
Bill Clinton was lionized by the Left…until the MeToo movement gave an opportunity to attack Trump for the same sexual predatory behavior that they not only defended Bill Clinton on, but also praised him as the greatest President since JFK (until Obama usurped him).
As for Harvey Weinstein, his sexual predatory actions were an open secret in Hollywood. Hillary (and her handlers) surely knew exactly what was going on, just as she knew with Bill. They stamped their approval of Harvey by saying “it was something that everyone thought made sense.”
Back to my main point above: “The Brett Kavanaugh hearings were merely political theater with no underlying reality of a foundational moral truth for feminists or the Democrat Party.”
I agree with most of that, but not the degree of one-sidedness you assert. There are hordes of all-in apologists for Trump too.
I don’t think future candidates from either party–that aren’t quite literally “grandfathered in”–will get away with as much. Now that the #MeToo pendulum has swung back toward sanity, I see that as a good thing.
On a tangentially related note, I’ll take someone like Louis CK’ s (seemingly) non-criminal perviness into account, but end up still watching him because he is funny, smart, and relatively self-aware. Can’t cross that bridge with Bill Cosby’s crimes. (Also, he’s less funny in every way–but he’d be “cancelled” as an entertainer in my own living room even if he were the most hilarious man alive).
I agree that Trump and Clinton are two ‘peas in a pod’ so to speak. And Biden has his own issues.
The reason for my surprise (which you take as “one-sidedness”) is that the Left was quite adamant for many, many decades that sexual matters did not matter at all when it came to elected officials. Remember JFK who whispered to his young female White House Intern that he wanted her to give a b*****b to his 50 year-old friend Dave Powers who was sitting on the side of the White House swimming pool..and she dutifully complied with the request of her boss? This type of behavior was an open secret with JFK and was no big deal on the progressive side of the aisle.
The Left was so successful with championing their amorality-in-high-office approach that after the Religious Right movement died down, Republicans eventually came over to the Left’s viewpoint – this time with Trump. But then – all of a sudden – the Left and Feminists decided to pull a ‘Religious Left’.
All is fair in love, war, and politics…BUT…JFK, Clinton, Trump, etc, were sexual predators…but Kavanaugh? The Kavanaugh hearing was merely a smear job by the Left that had no real evidence to indicate he was guilty of anything that Ford accused him of.
I don’t care for such nonsense.
Well I hadn’t heard about that specific instance of JFK’s horndog ways. But I do know that the press, at that time, protected presidents and ignored or hushed up their misdeeds–especially if you were handsome and promising.
I acknowledge the free-love-for-me, scarlet-letter-for-thee hypocrisy that is common on the Left. I just don’t see it as fundamentally different or exponentially more widespread than the family-values-for-thee, hookers-and-mistresses-for-me hypocrisy that is common on the Right.
At the time, behaviour like that was entirely “normal” not only in politics, but at the upper echelons of business. I have a friend who was the Executive Assistant to a prominent businessman back in the 1980s, and she tells very similar stories.
I can easily believe that. I’d just point out that JFK was the early 1960s, Clinton the 90s.
I think the wives of powerful men were likelier to look the other way than a butcher or baker’s wife, and regard their husband’s escapades a part of the “great man” package, if you will. Still are I think.
I could never understand the Kavanaugh appointment. I get that Trump wanted to appoint a conservative to the Supreme Court. However, I would have thought there would be no end of conservative jurists who would be keen for the job. Why couldn’t Trump pick one who didn’t have an allegation such as this hanging over his head.
“Guilty…now what was the allegation?”
This seems to be the standard these days for US Senate Supreme Court Nomination Hearings.
I don’t understand why the US Senate fishes around the country for private persons who don’t have any verifiable evidence of suggested or alleged conduct from decades ago, and then parades them in front of the entire nation just to cast unverifiable destructive aspersions against nominated candidates. In my view, such things are more appropriate for a Jerry Springer-style show.
But Jerry Springer is what we now have with the US Senate Supreme Court Nomination Hearings.
You don’t understand…they were going to do it to anyone he appointed. She drudged this up when she saw who it was and the possible danger to having unfettered child deletion.
I don’t think they knew about it untill it was too late.
In my long life, I have seen US Presidential campaigns move from a situation where the mere hint of a sex scandal would utterly destroy a candidate, to a situation where they are nothing at all out of the ordinary.
….or the correct religious organisation.
There ought to be a word for this, where a character like Blasey Ford, or the more recent Australian one, Brittany Higgins, walks onto the public stage precisely at a point of political crescendo, to make sexual assault claims weak in evidence but vast in partisan opportunity.
It should be borne in mind that Bruce Lehrmann, the person accused by Brittany Higgins, is facing a further unrelated charge.
It should also be borne in mind that this ‘unrelated charge’ stems from an accusation in the Julian Assange mould – the accusation being that, after he picked her up in a nightclub and went back to her place for consensual sex with her at night, the accuser awoke next morning to find Lehrmann raping her (by having what she says was non-consensual morning sex, without a condom). She went to police much later, after she recognised Lehrmann on the telly as the man accused of rape by Brittany Higgins.
Doesn’t make the second accusation untrue. But it is, in a not insignificant way, very much ‘related’ to the Higgins one.
Well, it is “related” to the Higgins one in that it involves the same (alleged) perpetrator.
So what?
Bit of a coincidence, don’t you think? Two unrelated women making accusations against the same guy? After all, Lehrmann isn’t a politician, so it can’t really be a “political hit job”.
Martin M if you are knowledgeable of these accusations and the ensuing media and court circus, you also know the target never was the accused but instead the Liberal Party, the minister and the Prime Minister. You also know the accusations were broadcast across the nation before they were made to the police. That has to be the first element of a political hit job- seek media interest prior to objective criminal justice. If you do that, you can muddy the waters so much there is no possibility of criminal justice operating as a seeker of truth.
Lehrmann was a low level political staffer. He was hardly at the heart of the Liberal Party.
Yes yes…and this sort of disingenuous quibbling is usually how and where #MeToo routinely departs reality, and why it’s now such a discredited
rights movementPunishment Cult. The forced pretence that an accusation that has been activated directly from the accuser learning about another accusation…is never-the-less ‘pristinely stand-alone’; and thus, ought to be examined without any explicit acknowledgment of that context, and an incorporation of that context into the sceptical process of singular on-merit investigation. It’s as if the Salem trials, and all that we know from them (and many other outbreaks of lynch mob hysteria) about groupthink and ideas contagion, never happened.Man is accused of rape. Appears on TV accused of rape. Trial for rape never completed. Woman who accuses him of rape declines to pursue second trial, but instead receives $2.4 unexamined taxpayer compensation for reasons not made clear. Another woman, who once had consensual sex with that same man, watches the story unfold on TV.
Accuses man of rape. (Rinse, repeat…?)
I mean it doesn’t mean the second accusation isn’t true. But to suggest the two cases are ‘unrelated’ is about as credible as claiming that false accusations of rape are mostly a ‘myth’. It just doesn’t accord with what most people, including most women, recognise as…unremarkable reality.
You seem to have a particularly low regard for women.
They are both completely related to the persecution of Lehmann to vindicate the establishment folk with stake in the pro-Higgins narrative, and should be characterised without shame as such
….except that Lehrmann has now been found to have “done it”.
So what? He could be guilty of one, both or neither.
Yes. So? To be falsely accused of rape once is a misfortune. To be falsely accused of rape twice seems like carelessness. Either that, or something in one’s “seduction technique” needs a but of tweaking.
Just for the record, Bruce Lehrmann has just been found by an Australian Civil Court to have raped Brittany Higgins. I for my part an not surprised.
Whatever the underlying truth of the matter, I find it impossible to feel sorry for Kavanaugh. He is repulsive.
You are repulsive.
he’s not repulsive, he just seems like a sily frat boy who was never accepted
Yes, fair enough. I guess I have less tolerance than you for people like that.
He seems spineless.
There’s certainly something about him that seems amiss. He doesn’t come across as authentic.
There’s no evidence to support Christine Ford’s story. None. Ever. Not from back 30 years ago when she said it happened. Not since. Her own friends, her own family support her but don’t believe her. She says in high school she went to a party and was sexually assaulted by a boy and his friend who she had just met there, while her best friend and two others waited downstairs. Reporters have investigated, and found no evidence that the party ever happened. She can’t say when it happened, or where it happened.
Jean Carroll’s story is eerily similar. The only evidence she has to support her tale is her own words. She says that she went into a lingerie dressing room with a celebrity she had only just met to jokingly try on women’s underwear together, and that he raped her. She too can’t say when it happened, though she does say where. A friend testified that Jean Carroll had told her of the rape sometime after it happened, but there is no evidence to support that.
These stories are too improbable to give any credence too. That’s why feminist lawyers politically active in Democratic politics had to represent the women for free to pursue their accusations. These were political attacks, battles in the lawfare the Democrats have been waging.
Sexual assault is a horrific crime, and it happens much too often. That people like Harvey Weinstein got away with it for so long is shocking. The Obamas sent their own daughter to intern at his movie production company. The #MeToo movement did do some good.
But it did some bad too. Christine Ford and Jean Carroll are two examples of that.
I remember seeing Ford giving her version of events. I found her entirely believable. I remember seeing Kavanaugh giving his response. He came across as a lying Preppie weasel.
I found her to be laughable, surrounded by a coterie of sycophants and hangers-on most of whom probably have dropped her like a bad stone by now.
And unless you are a trained police interrogator (and even then) it might be that you are seeing what you want to see. Even if its not about the partisanship maybe you have something against preppie boys?
Yes. I definitely have something against Preppie boys. Specifically, I hate the fact that they regard themselves as being above the law.
So basically, you’re biased and it didn’t matter what she said; you were going to believe her anyway because a guy you have never met and do not know looks like a group of guys you despise. That’s some galaxy brain thinking.
Whereas some here fly to the opposite hive, seemingly certain that Ford, Carroll, and Hill were all just straight-up lying.
They can just tell.
Which is why it was an intelligence-insulting spectacle. Making serious political decisions about which of the 2 opponents seemed “entirely believable” to whom. Something’s telling me that believability was not randomly distributed between L and R leaning members of the viewing and excitedly or angrily braying mob.
One day, in a better future, people will be looking at videos of these hearings like we look at old films showing public executions.
Maybe so. We’re surely in a very judgmental, meanspirited cultural moment.
When juries decide guilt, they listen to the witnesses, and decide whom they believe. All I am saying is if I had been on a jury trying Kavanaugh, I would have had no hesitation in disbelieving him.
Well I think the ethical approach is to extend the benefit of the doubt; to have open ears and eyes but presume innocence until guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is established. Of course, “reasonable” is not some stable or precise standard.
And let’s remember that this was a hearing to establish fitness for the highest court in the land, or lack thereof, not a criminal trial. I don’t know what did or didn’t happen when Ford and Kavanaugh were teenagers–don’t think any of us quite do–but the standard of evidence needn’t be exactly the same as the proof needed for a felony conviction.
*Don’t intend to be patronizing. I didn’t know you’re a lawyer but my response was also directed at the whole group here.
Then you have no business on a jury. Ever. You have no ability to discern right from wrong.
They made the accusations, the burden of proof is on them, sorry.
No, wrong. It stems from the accusers being participants in politically motivated lawfare to find someone guilty until proven innocent based on very flimsy evidence.
For instance, I hope you’re aware, but I doubt it, that in her own words E Jean Carroll is a sexual fantasist who accused many others of sexual assault; her dentist, her daughter’s boyfriend, someone in an elevator. Her favorite TV show is Law and Order which had an episode with the exact circumstances she describes happened between her and Trump, even down to the name of the store.
Carroll named her cat Vagina. Creepy character.
Oh, and I’ll hazard a guess you didn’t know New York brought in a new law, temporarily of course, which allowed them to circumvent the existing statute of limitations just so Carroll could bring her case to court.
Most of the cases you support have little or nothing to do with justice or the law, it’s simply a Democrat modus operandi.
I think the mind is complex. It remembers what it needs to remember to persist. And yes it’s sad when it’s negative things.
The burden of proof is on the acccuser.
If he’d have come across as credible, I’d have given him the benefit of the doubt. However, he didn’t. Much as I dislike the Preppie Class, I don’t seek to pin offences they didn’t commit on them.
That’s about it.
What law? The law that would find someone guilty until proven innocent. That’s the law you’re talking about.
Obviously, but they deserve it.
Or perhaps his head was a bit small for his shoulders, or his eyes had that beady look criminals all have. Just sounds like bias. Hope you’re not on anyone’s jury.
I’m not entitled to serve on a jury, as I am a lawyer.
Really? I was unaware that any US state automatically disqualifies attorneys from serving on a jury. Google seems to be unaware of that fact as well. Odd. And you’re a lawyer, you say … ?
I am a lawyer in the State of Western Australia.
Then you know that detail is credibility. A witness who can easily tell us who, when, what, where and how, is credible. A witness who cannot is not.
Maybe insert liar for lawyer.
You can watch someone on television and from that alone judge their credibility?
Yes. I am a lawyer. I have spent a long career determining the truthfulness of witnesses based on their replies to questions, and their general demeanor.
And that’s exactly why we need a justice system where everyone enjoys the presumption of innocence, right to representation, right to a fair trial etc etc. Even preppie weasels.
We have that. Kavanaugh has not been convicted of anything, and he is on the Supreme Court. It would seem that being a Preppie Weasel doesn’t disqualify him from holding that position.
Your tear prove more than real evidence ever could
I’d comment, but I have no idea what that means.
“I’d comment, but I have no idea what that means.”
It’s a quote from a Simpsons episode when Homer is mistakenly accused of a sexual assault.
The case is covered on a TV talk show where a woman who is entirely unrelated to the events breaks down in tears about what a monster Homer is.
The interviewer encourages her with the words, “Your tears say more than real evidence ever could.”
As so often is the case, The Simpsons predicted trial by social media.
Exactly!
As a woman, I don’t believe her either. She’s admitted one of her motivations was to save roe.
You clearly believe what you want to believe, regardless of evidence to the contrary. Your post indicates you’re likely someone easily led by trends in leftist media.
“….easily led by trends in leftist media“. Despite the fact that politically, I am on the traditional Right? Check.
Most women are raped by someone they know. Mine was by my ex-boyfriend. I let him come into my apartment, because he was banging on my door. Quite honestly, I don’t remember a lot about it. I don’t remember what day or month it happened or even what time. I had no evidence and didn’t want to report it, because I was terrified of him. It’s called trauma. My response was to wipe it from my memory.
I remember in great detail every single time I was sexually assaulted. This lying political pawn admitted herself that she wasn’t raped, and that her motives for making the accusation were related to preserving abortion. Her own father and her best friend didn’t support her assertions.
This was a political hit job. The only difference between her and Bush Era dupe Cindy Sheehan is that Sheehan actually suffered a terrible loss.
So because it happened to you that’s why we should automatically believe her? Her friends and family don’t believe her. They know her better than anyone.
When did your memory come back?
“But it did some bad too. Christine Ford and Jean Carroll are two examples of that.”
A jury verdict in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.
The jury verdict from the January 2024 trial was $83.3 million in additional damages.
Yes, I know. My argument is that the Jean Carroll trials were a farce.
Sounds fair to me.
An “OJ” jury.
The $83 million was for insulting her desirability as a potential rape victim.
Harvey Weinstein is a very different matter. The victims of his reprehensible behavior were the women who were not “assaulted,” and therefore did not get the jobs they wanted. It was a discriminatory hiring violation. The women who engaged in a quid pro quo, albeit asymmetrical, with Mr Weinstein were not in the same league of victimhood. This is one of the reasons the #metoo movement ran out of gas.
Attacking men never gets old.
I won’t listen to anyone in good faith who refers to Michael Avenatti, the 2018 hope of the democrats, without his full title ‘Creepy Porn Lawyer’.
Sic transit. As Kat adeptly identifies, power and the pursuit thereof is the one constant.
I always remember these hearings as the October 5 Insurrection. From the Guardian:
No dredging the memory hole, please. We were meant to have forgotten this damgerous misinformation.
Ford’s testimony was neither credible nor serious. She was and still is a joke.
I would say that Kavanaugh’s denial was neither credible nor serious. The fact that this man is on the US Supreme Court reflects badly on the US as a nation.
No that’s Brown-Jackson.
Nasty comment.
Entirely accurate, considering her ‘First Amendment hamstringing the federal government’ quote. Then there’s her ignorant comment about white doctors treating black babies and of course her craven non-response to being asked ‘What is a woman?’ I’m absolutely sick to death of the wilfully blind loyalty granted to public figures solely on the basis of their sex and/or race.
“Indelible on the hippocampus.” Like a Rorschach inkblot: No specificity or details. Black and white. A blob.
But like the old joke goes: “Well, YOU’RE the one with the dirty pictures, doctor!”
The truth is that no human being can, merely by looking at a person, tell whether that person is or is not guilty. No one, that is, other than a Hegelian, who subscribes to view that innocence comes only at the end of history. The view being suggested here, by some, is that Kavanaugh is guilty not for what he did, but because he was born at the wrong time.
I think this article’s speculation that MeToo has been superceded by other grievance movements is the right explanation. In this new era of BLM and intersectionality, the sexual assault of a privileged white woman just doesn’t call out for justice anymore. I remember being shocked at the MeToo stories of women like Blasey Ford: white women who seemed to have power and success and yet could still be victims of male sexual aggression. But now their “whiteness” trumps (!) their experience of sexual assault so no one really cares. Maybe that’s why Anita Hill’s reputation has remained high years after her also unproven allegations against Clarence Thomas and she has recently reappeared as a respected commentator on sexual politics?
It’s a plausible claim. But it took a long time for Hill to build that post-hearing reputation, not by means of memoir or undue self-promotion. I doubt this book will help Ford in the long run.
Even if her claims are accurate, what is she really talking about? An episode of drunken groping involving teenagers. That’s certainly never happened in human history. If that is the standard through which we judge one’s life and worthiness, then virtually no one is going to live up to it. And funny how Avenatti faded into the background of a prison cell after promising to bring forth one alleged victim after another of a supposed rape gang. At times, Congress is a bad cross between a high school cafeteria and professional wrestling, although in wrestling, the participants know it’s an act.
As I understand the law, saying “I was drunk, and I am a teenager” isn’t a defence to a rape charge.
Except she didn’t alleged that he raised her, even. She claimed he threw her on a bed and tried to disrobe her, but stopped when a friend of Kavanaugh’s – who also has no memory of this – walked in.
None of the people she named as witnesses remember this happening, nor even being there. She herself had no recollection of whose house it was, nor who drove her there, nor how she got home.
It’s as if it never happened, because it almost certainly did not. (E Jean Carol’s allegations against Trump have similar inconsistencies, to the point of unbelievability.)
In my opinion, Ford is delusional, and Senate Democrats took advantage of a disturbed woman, to smear and slander an innocent man.
I see that Unherd have chosen to censor my earlier post where I accurately predicted that this “article” would unleash a tsunami of rape apologists.
You people are nothing if not predictable…
It’s surprising, “Champagne Socialist”, that you put that up.
A tsunami? None of the above are what could reasonably be described as rape apology; perhaps you’re just not reasonable. I think that’s it.
It’s because you lie a lot.
CS thinking: “hmm, an article doubting CB Ford’s assault allegations … that means the writer and the readers must on principle doubt all such assault allegations”. It’s a good example of left-progressive emotional thinking habits in general.
Just read the comments below, hoss – you’ll see how right I was!
Uh huh
No one should have to be subject to a revenge rape accusation. Who knows what really happened to Blasey Ford? She had no proof. She had no corroborating witnesses. The entire thing was tainted by obvious political bias.
Who knows what really happened to Blasey Ford?
Kavanaugh does, and I for my part found his denial of her version of events entirely unconvincing.
The unproven, unsupported accusation of Blasey Ford is terrible. No one should bring out such an accusation without some kind of proof. I know a number of men who have been badly damaged by this #metoo shit. One friend from my grad school days lost his job due to an accusation that he proposed to a student that they have an affair. No actual affair occurred. His claim is that SHE proposed it to him, to persuade him to be her mentor. She now has a tenured position, he lost his job, an editorship of a big journal, and pretty much his reputation. Another case is the current accusation against political scientist Yascha Mounk.
These accusations are really just revenge porn in another form.
Do you support all rapists or just the ones you went to grad school with?
I personally do not support rapists like Bill Clinton, who made numerous trips to Epstein Island to sexually assault sixteen and seventeen year old underage girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as Hillary Clinton would say,
Do you know for a fact that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted underage girls?
CS, you do understand that the mindset of “that’s just the type of guy who would do something like that, so we don’t need to see any corroborating evidence” can be applied to young black men from urban neighborhoods as easily as to smug white frat boys.
The worst aspect of Me Too was not MT itself but the ‘Believe Her’ movement that accompanied it. This demanded that any accused man must be found guilty on a woman’s say-so alone because no woman would ever lie about being raped or sexually assaulted. Rules of evidence were to be dispensed with. And of course a small number of unscrupulous women (cf Amber Herd) took full advantage of this brave new world, thereby making things arguably worse for women than they were before. Own goal. It’s true that in rape cases it very often comes down to the woman’s word against the man’s and that the vast majority of genuine victims are unable to get their case heard in court let alone secure well-deserved convictions. But MeToo and Believe Her did us no favours.
They were able to dismiss and harass Tara Reade out of the country after she accused Biden…more credibly than Blasey Ford.
Ford, during the confirmation hearings, didn’t realize she was being used and that she was expendable. Her memoir is an attempt to get her 15 minutes of fame, but it’s based entirely on the fact that the people who put her in the spotlight were exploiting her the entire time.
Herman Cain. Black businessman, politically conservative, made his fortune in various fast food enterprises. Announced his candidacy for President of the United States at the start of the 2012 campaign. Started to get some traction from black voters and working class whites. Suddenly women started coming out of the woodwork accusing him of sexual misconduct, some of it decades prior. “Just remembered it when I saw his name in the papers”, that sort of thing, The most effective accuser just happened to live in the same apartment building as David Axelrod, Hillary Clinton’s campaign advisor. She had a history of personal bankruptcy, had just filed for bankruptcy a second time, was facing eviction from her apartment for non-payment of rent. The press put her ‘story’ on the front page, refused any mention of her desperate financial situation, which mysteriously disappeared at the same time. Her bankruptcy petition was withdrawn, her rent arrears were paid, and several four and five figure payments appeared in her bank account. Cain withdrew from the race, she disappeared into the mists of the media black hole. All was well once again in the permanent government.
If money flowed from Cain to the complainant, there is every possibility he knew he had a case to answer, and reached a settlement with her.
The money did not come from Cain. Welcome to the real world.
And you’re a lawyer? Good God Almighty.
I had to laugh,reading this. It’s so true which makes it funny. It’s like when you try to turn your vicious cruel tormentors round by declaring,” I’m autistic,and I’m not well,I’ve got a heavy cold and a headache,and I’ve got bills to pay” and it just makes them laugh more,and not sober up and say,”oh now we understand you” like the lying media would pretend.Because “the media” has to fill pages,and now hours,of time,digital time they make “issues” out of everything. It’s NOT because they CARE,it’s to feed the Beast,no empty space. And yes the whole point of these allegations was to bring people down,be it showbiz or politics. I think the first experience of vaginal penetrative sex is actually rape for a lot of women. That’s either through the incompetence of the male or even the fact he’d rather be with someone else but he can’t snare them so he’s making do with you. At least he pretended to be “madly in love” with you for the six months you’ve been going out together and continually talking about marriage. At least it wasnt a quickie behind the pub. But no one ever talks about that because our whole entertainment INDUSTRY is movies + music is based on the idea replicated decade by decade that sex is a totally pleasurable experience in whatever form of activity it takes,it’s always blissful,and two human bodies in close proximity just go into action of themselves,it’s all quite involuntary and no direct conscious actions or decisions are required. This myth is very important for both men and women. That sweet,pretty,virginal faced young woman who suddenly has a bump. “It just happened”. Like it does. No one admits to touching anything,rubbing,squeezing,that would be admitting too much conscious agency,and we all know from our lifetimes of films,tv shows and even pop music that sexual attraction is an overpowering force that completely removes from the two attracted people all conscious agency as their bodies get on with it overruling their ability to think. And actually this myth or excuse is not,as it may sound,to the advantage of the Male Patriarchy. It’s actually the Girlie get out clause.
I don’t know what world you live in, but I’m pretty sure I’ve never been there.
Yes, welcome to the world of Jane.
Jane . . . your allegory is . . . oddly specific. Are you sure you’re ok?
You’d have to be mad to run for political office in the Banana Republic. You’d have to be mad to aspire to a place on the Supreme Court.
This is a country in the grip of a collective nervous breakdown, where the rule of law is merely a political weapon, and where even St Francis of Assisi would struggle to avoid being indicted.
On a more serious note, who would wish to stand for office, when everything you’ve done since the age of 14 would immediately be pored over by hostile hacks? Which one of us could withstand such scrutiny? And even if you win, they’ll try to bankrupt you and/or put you in prison.
Hugs from the UK.
Women lie. Men lie. Women are truthful. Men are truthful. To ‘believe the accuser’ means, “Guilty until PROVEN innocent”. Can you prove your innocence? No, you cannot prove a negative. Therefore, ‘Mee Too’ was a witch hunt from the get-go. Power corrupts. Complete power corrupts completely.
No women can have the authority to kill a man’s career and reputation only on her say-so.
To those who say, ‘Believe women’, I say, “Why?”
Kananaugh got away with it so apparently women aren’t believed.
I recall the Kavanagh hearings as The Time of Duelling Blubberers: the forced tears of Ford and the embarrassing real ones of Kavanagh. Cringe is right, and cringe all round, a fitting coda, if that’s what it was, for the MeToo p***y hat……thing.
I also recall how The New Yorker shamed and discredited itself. “Relaxing their standards”? Is that what that was?
Rosenfield had to go and bring it all up again, and to what purpose? To observe that there is a news cycle?
Profound.
Welcome to life. All of this politicking around not innocent things, but not convictable at the time they were done does a disservice to the ascendency of governance as the reason to vote for somebody.
She’s really just taken too long getting her book out to fully cash in. But in the age of AI no one needs to be caught out like this. A full account could have been produced, making all the right points with all the right words, and have been ready in time for breakfast.
“the p***y-grabbing, porn star-bribing, thrice-married adulterer who was recently ordered to pay millions of dollars to the woman he was found legally liable for having sexually assaulted.”
Trump was NOT found guilty of sexual assault. He was fined a rediculous amount for defamation.
The Monica Lewinski affair was a nothing. She was over 18 and consented to become a concubine. Clinton just took what was freely offered. They both became laughingstocks What was important was the rape committed by Clinton when he was attorney general in Arkansas as well as ordering a government employee to kiss the Governer’s p***s. The networks suppressed the news and prevented it from being used against Clinton. Also important was Clinton allowing American firms to sell military secretes to China in exchange for political contributions.