Spectacle...

I'll keep this short, for if I don't, I could get angrier and angrier. What transpired in the "hearings" for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh should have every American embarrassed. Embarrassed to the core. It was an awful spectacle.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was a genuine, credible witness of the assault she experienced, allegedly at the hands of a young man who would go on to become a nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States. That she was assaulted came through clearly, and her therapists, a polygraph test, and witnesses could provide conclusive proof by whom. The witnesses were not subpoenaed, and were thus suppressed as evidence. An FBI investigation—which has now been advocated by the American Bar Association and Mr. Kavanaugh's Alma Mater, Yale University—has been ruled out by the President and the majority members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Mr. Kavanaugh, in his defense, was belligerent, condescending to his questioners, obfuscated answers  and rejected measures--such as the aforementioned FBI investigation--that could find clear evidence of his professed innocence. There is something wrong with a person who proclaims innocence, exhibits bullying anger, but refuses to advocate for an investigative process that could produce exonerating evidence--especially when that person is a Federal District judge and a candidate for the highest court in the land.

The whole country believes Dr. Ford was assaulted. There are legal ways to find out by whom, whether it was by the man she has accused, or by someone else, as at least one of the "alternative" facts has suggested.

Mr. Kavanaugh's innocence could be proved by the same investigation. By denying it, or in the case of the Judiciary Committee, by not asking the President to convene one, the accused parties are either hiding something or just trying to ramrod their choice for the high court.

All parties lose. Ford has blown open her life because of testifying to what she believes is a disqualifying event for a supreme court nominee. In his own defense, Judge Kavanaugh demonstrated a temperament that does not belong on the Supreme Court--an angry and deeply partisan temperament. Even if, before the final Senate vote, an FBI investigation was convened, and even if it exonerated him, Kavanaugh's tactics at the hearing this week should exclude him from the high court, in my opinion.

No one gets out of this mess unscathed. It appears that Judge Kavanaugh will be confirmed by a majority with a specific agenda--pack the court with conservatives at all costs. He will serve not as a distinguished jurist, but as an "asterisked" caucasian version of Clarence Thomas.

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford will pick up the pieces of her life, knowing that when she answered the very difficult call to serve and inform her country of what she saw as a gross injustice, those leading her country right now said, "Don't call us, we'll call you."

Let us pray for both of these families to find redemption, for our nation to find a way out of this hyper-partisanship that is tearing us apart, and for women who have suffered the same kind of assault as Dr. Ford to be emboldened to speak out against their abusers and attackers.

I also pray we will never see another spectacle like that again, but the results of the Mueller investigation is yet before us. Lord, have mercy.

[NOTE: A Senate vote delay was called and an additional FBI background investigation ordered,  after the time this blog was posted.]