District
of Columbia Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is Trump’s
second nominee to the Supreme Court, is unlike Trump in that he is a Yale-educated career Republican who is unflaggingly polite to those he considers his social peers.
He is a lot like Trump in that he is so
comprehensively awful that it’s hard to pick a line of attack, and
so shamelessly dishonest that it’s painful to watch someone try to
pin him down on any of it.
But now he’s dangerously close to a lifetime appointment to the most powerful court in the country, so we have to get our bearings on at least a few of the most important ways in which he is awful.
This isn’t going to be fun reading, so just keep in mind that it’s not too late. Yet.
“In one of Brett M. Kavanaugh’s responses to allegations that he sexually assaulted a 15-year-old girl when he was in high school, a charge he has denied “categorically and unequivocally,” he suggested that, perhaps, this was a case of mistaken identity.
As crazy as that sounds, it wouldn’t be unheard of. And, given the high regard in which Kavanaugh has been held throughout his life, including during high school, it would make the most sense. Could there be a Kavanaugh doppelganger?”
She concludes:
“In advance of the scheduled hearing, character references have been stacking up on both sides, with two of Kavanaugh’s former girlfriends and others saying he has always been a consummate gentleman. A separate letter signed by 65 women who have known him over the years affirms the same. Ford’s high school acquaintances and professional colleagues have been equally generous in supporting her.
Thus, giving both the benefit of the doubt, it seems possible to believe both that Ford was assaulted just as she has described — and also that Kavanaugh didn’t do it. In a case without evidence, witnesses or corroboration, mistaken identity would provide a welcome resolution to this terrible riddle.
Anyone?”
Oh my fucking GOD.
Well, you threw it open, sweetheart, and I’m gonna answer.
As regards the material facts, this theory is contemptible. Ford and Kavanaugh both come from the same small elite world and their high schools frequently socialized together. This is not a case of stranger rape. She went to a high school party with people she knew and a guy she knew and his friend who she also knew dragged her into a room and tried to rape her. Parker writes as if this happened in some darkened parking garage and Ford then had to pick her assailant out of a lineup. No. She must have known him. She must have known who he was when he attacked her. Kavanaugh denies this, he denies that he DID it, but he does not deny that he knew her. (He’s said he didn’t know who was accusing him until she went public, which is different–and, given the likelihood that he may have done this to more than one person, may even be true.)
In the world of metaphor, symbol and allegory…oh, this is just one deployment of a very old tactic for dealing with the doubleness of ‘good men.’ Rather than face the fact that Respectable People never want to face–the fact that you can function in the Respectable World as a Good Man and still be a rapist or an abuser or just a true asshole to all the women you get close to–they split the Good Man into the Good Man and his evil doppelganger. This allows the Good Man to remain Good while still recognizing the bad actions as bad. All you have to do to make it work is invent a shadow self for the Good Man who is going around doing these Bad Things with the Good Man’s face and in the Good Man’s name. I have noticed that this scenario occurs in male-authored science fiction with some frequency. There’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, of course; but more recently, this exact scenario is worked out in the context of an accusation of sexual assault against a Good Man in Star Trek (original series)’s “The Enemy Within.” The X-Files episodes “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” and “Avatar” are both variations on this theme, in which the premise involves a Good Man (or in the case of JCFOS, a Nice Guy) who is accused of rape (and, in “Avatar,” murder) and certainly appears guilty, until Mulder and Scully uncover the paranormal explanation that exonerates him (though interestingly, in both episodes Scully is willing to accept the obvious explanation even though it means believing that her Good Man boss is capable of murder). Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray does the opposite by exposing this Good Man/Bad Man doppelganger thing for what it is: a way for society to protect its own. Dorian’s secret portrait, which accumulates the physical consequences of Dorian Gray’s actions, allows Dorian Gray to go on looking like, and believed by his society to be, a Good Man despite mounting evidence of his crimes.
Is it possible that a lot of women who know Brett Kavanaugh well think he’s a Good Man–AND that Christine Ford knows that he is a rapist manque? Yes. Of course yes. This happens ALL THE TIME. Where WERE these people for the Rob Porter saga, or for the Louis C. K. debacle, or for the Al Franken crashing and burning? NOBODY in comedy did Good Man better than Bill Cosby and look what was going on behind THAT curtain. “But he denies it categorically!” HE IS LYING. Men lie. Because a man is good TO YOU, that does not mean that he has never been bad to anyone else. COME ON, people!
They made it into a ringtone because it was old enough to be public domain, and Nokia (I think?) didn’t want to have to pay royalties.
… I like the full version.
are you SHITTING ME. This is one of those posts that makes you question your worldview a little bit, tbh
okay, not quite. not quite. but the truth is better.
the original tune is not this. the original tune is, however, public domain, so they’re not wrong. it’s francisco tárrega’s gran vals – check 0:12.
but THIS, what he’s playing, is the Valse Irritation d’après Nokia, also known as the ringtone waltz, written by Marc-André Hamelin, who is a terrific canadian pianist and who wrote this as a snap reaction to having people’s fucking cellphones go off at concerts.
Hearseeno 