Every Good Morning

 

Brett Kavanaugh stands accused of an attempted rape that occurred 36 years ago when he was 17 and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, was 15. Kavanaugh has denied the action: “I categorically and unequivocally deny this allegation. I did not do this back in high school or at any time.” He has agreed to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

There is no wiggle room in his denial. It is emphatic and certain.

Christine Ford told her therapist about the alleged assault in 2012. The therapist has notes from that meeting. Ford volunteered to take a polygraph test with the FBI and passed the test. She has volunteered to testify under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee that her story is true. Her lawyer, speaking for her said, “”No one in their right mind regardless of their motive would want to inject themselves into this process and face the kind of annihilation that she will be subjected to by those who want this nominee to go through. This is not a politically motivated action. In fact, she was quite reluctant to come forward.”  Ford has committed herself to come forward and pay whatever price is demanded of her.

There is no wiggle room in her accusation. It too is emphatic and certain.

Twenty-seven years after the televised testimony of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill, we have returned to another moment when great powers come into conflict over one woman’s story and one man’s denial of her story. Once again, we will (I suspect) as a people witness another such moment, and we will as a people have to decide who is telling the truth.

More than anyone, Shakespeare understood how easily a face can hide the truth. In Macbeth, King Duncan, speaking of a friend who has betrayed him says, “There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built an absolute trust. Macbeth, preparing to murder Duncan tells his wife, “False face must hide what the false heart doth know.”

How do we go about reading a face, listening to a voice, watching a body unfold itself in testimony? How do we determine, as best we can, what happened and whom we should trust?

Knowing what we know about the vagaries of memory, its holes and looping creations, knowing that 36 years have passed since the alleged incident, knowing that alcohol may have been a heavy factor, knowing that Ford spoke of this allegation in 2012, long before Kavanaugh was a well known figure, knowing that Kavanaugh has given the most certain and severe of denials, how do we go about determining who is telling the truth or the closest version to what actually happened all those years ago?

Of course, the earth has shifted on its axis since 1991 and Hill and Thomas.  Women have become a political force. Both American culture and the law have evolved in terms of what was once accepted as ‘normal’ in political, workplace and personal relationships between men and women. Any man worth his salt has to have thought about that shift and therefore has to have reconsidered his behavior with women from long ago and have asked himself the question, “Did I cross the line then?”

I have done so to the best of my memory. I can say that there were moments of fumbling stupidity and of callous indifference, but I do not recall real cruelty or actions that would have resulted in criminal charges. Except … I will tell you I have to wonder what some of those women might remember. I cannot be sure of their response. How could I be?

My natural reaction to confrontations between power and the powerless is to take the side of those without power who claim to have been wronged. Since I was 19, 20, 21, 22 — somewhere in that span, my first reaction has been to protect, to shield, to step towards someone in difficulty with another and to face the aggressor. In the case of Kavanaugh and Ford, that same inclination leads me toward Ford who has placed herself in the target-sights of immense political power. She will receive death-threats. No matter what happens, her life will forever be under attack. Why would she come forward knowing the consequences? Because she is a deranged publicity-seeker? Because she is a political tool of the Democrats? A last second liar summoned forth by shadowy operatives of the deep state to drive a stake through Kavanaugh’s nomination? Someone who says, “Yes, I will be your kamikaze!”

No, none of those possibilities seem possible in the light of logic and current circumstance.

Something happened between Kavanaugh and Ford.

We will once again have to summon whatever tools we possess for discerning the core of a person’s character and for figuring out whether someone is reliable and to be trusted. We will all have to choose.