It is not an exaggeration to say that the confirmation of
Brett Kavanaugh by the United States Senate as a US Supreme Court justice is the equivalent of the defeat for Senator Joseph McCarthy in
the McCarthy/US Army hearings (also before a US Senate committee) between April
and June 1954. McCarthy was a political opportunist (and, if memory serves, a
drunk), who, as everyone knows, exploited the anti-communist mania in the US
after WW2. He terrorized people and destroyed lives and careers, including,
famously, in Hollywood, and, until the US army stood up to him, got away with
disgraceful and outrageous behaviour. Inevitably, someone will always
come along and stand up to a bully. You would think that McCarthy would have
known better than to take on the US army but he had already, if memory serves,
destroyed the career of the US Secretary of State, General Marshall (of
Marshall Plan fame). Marshall had been Eisenhower’s boss in WW2 and had helped
his career but President Eisenhower didn’t lift a finger to help Marshall when McCarthy went
after him. So, McCarthy thought he could do it again but he met his match in
the hearings against the army and McCarthyism gradually faded away. It didn’t
happen overnight but an ugly period in US history ended effectively after
McCarthy lost a row with the US army.
Kavanaugh’s confirmation will, I think, turn out to be an
event of similar importance to the McCarthy/Army Hearings. It was inevitable
that the #MeToo movement, which is a revolution of sorts and an understandable
one, would be accompanied by a period of revolutionary justice (no evidence of sexual misconduct needed). It was equally inevitable that the screaming screamers and the crazies
would go too far. (They are now blaming white American women for Kavanaugh's nomination and saying that they should not marry "within the race" to preserve white domination. You couldn't make it up.) And it was inevitable that a major political party (in this
case the Democrats, in the 1950s the Republicans) would jump on the bandwagon.
The #MeToo movement will continue, and with considerable
justification. Women have the bit between their teeth and are not going to put
up in the future with what they had to put up in the past. I don’t have a
problem with that but after Saturday's vote an accusation will no longer be the same as
evidence. It took a brave man and a savage contest to face down the bullying
but from now on more people will. A university lecturer, who, say, gives a
student a bad grade and is accused of a sexual assault will be more inclined to
stand his ground as will a falsely accused priest and so on.
In time the Democrats will come to realize that kangaroo
courts and revolutionary justice are no substitute for justice. Senate
committees (and any venue, including universities, the church, business, etc.
where these kinds of problems arise) will presumably sit down and look again at
the rules they operate for dealing with accusations of sexual misconduct. To
start with, the accusation against Kavanaugh should not have been entertained
because it was known to the Democrats for weeks before they raised it. They
waited until they thought that by raising it at the last minute they would
derail the confirmation procedure. That sort of unscrupulous behaviour must be
stamped out. Likewise, allegations should not be accepted unless accompanied by
prime facie evidence to go with the accusation. An accusation is not
evidence. You would think people would know that but at a time of hysteria
people are liable to forget basic rules.
I hope Dr Ford, who may now face a difficult time, realizes
how she was used by the Democrats and I hope others don’t allow the same thing
to happen to them. Politics is, at times, a dirty business. Politicians are
capable of behaving in a crude and cruel way and of generating casualties in
pursuit of their aims. Ford will probably suffer more than Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is
the wicked one here. Ford will hopefully realize that asserting her life had
been destroyed, when, happily and plainly, it had not been, was never going to
fool anyone. She acted badly and unwisely and made a fool of herself. That is
what can happen to people who get tangled up with politics and don’t realize
how dirty it can get.
There will be a lot of talk in the coming days about the
backlash that will be faced by the Republicans in the mid-term elections. The
opposite could be the case. A lot of women in the US were beginning to worry about what could happen to their husbands and their sons if the revolutionary justice
of the #MeToo movement was not checked. The question being asked by many women
in the US was that if a man of Kavanaugh’s eminence could be destroyed
for political purposes could the same thing not happen to their husbands and
sons? Very few people would be able to muster the support of the President of
the United States and the majority party in the US Senate if they were accused
of sexual misconduct. They could be (and many have been)
crushed. The IT-style narrative is that the US was divided between (wicked)
white males and the rest on the Kavanaugh nomination but I don’t believe that.
So, we will see whether the confirmation results in the expected heavy defeat
for the Republicans in the mid-term elections or if the scandal of the hearings
and the behaviour of the Democrats changes things.
I hope Kavanaugh’s first overseas visit as a Supreme Court
justice is to Ireland. Maybe an eminent lawyer or an eminent academic here will
invite him to address the Bar Council or the L&H in UCD or the Hist in
Trinity or some such. The screaming screamers (and the Irish Times) will no doubt demand that Kavanaugh be disinvited. Which might just wake people up to the bullying that is going on
here.
Ruadhan MacCormaic’s article in Saturday's Irish Times is interesting and by the IT
standards of recent days fairly balanced. He is right to say that the
reputation of the US Supreme Court has suffered in recent years, particularly
as a result of their decision to hand the Presidency to George W. Bush, the
worst US President in our lifetimes and quite possibly ever. MacCormaic says
that US Supreme Court judgments are not cited by courts outside the US nowadays. I can’t argue with
that as I don’t know if they are or not but if Roe V Wade is re-opened by the
US Supreme Court that will echo around the world. Which is why the Irish
Times is so angry. They are in fact scared. Just as the rest of the world was beginning to think again about abortion we disgraced ourselves by inserting
a right to abortion into the Constitution. The attempt to prevent Kavanaugh
reaching the Supreme Court was all about Roe V Wade, and everybody knows that.
