And so, this weekend, within the space of a few hours, something remarkable happened. The salient question about Ford’s allegations became, in some quarters, not whether they are true, but rather whether they count as allegations at all. The cruelties she describes—the alleged acts of dehumanization that left her traumatized, she says, as a 15-year-old and, still, as an adult—might be “terrible,” yes, but they are also … simply part of the natural order of things. Boys, figuring out how to be men. Locker-room talk, made manifest. “Drunk teenagers playing seven minutes of heaven.” Who wouldn’t be implicated in that? Who doesn’t see himself, in some way, in this age-old story? If somebody can be brought down by accusations like this, then you, me, every man certainly should be worried.

Americans talk a lot, these days, about norms. What will be preserved, in the tumult and chaos of today’s politics; what is worth preserving; what will fall away. Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court was already, in the profoundest of ways, a matter of norms: It will determine, almost inevitably, whether the women of America maintain autonomy over their bodies. Here, though, in Christine Blasey Ford’s claim that a young Brett Kavanaugh compromised her autonomy in another way, another norm is being litigated: the way we talk about sexual violence. Whether such violence will be considered an outrage, or simply a sad inevitability. Whether it will be treated as morally intolerable ... or as something that, boys being boys and men being men, just happens.

Christine Blasey Ford, who knew the risk she was taking—the horrific treatment of Anita Hill, all those years ago, remains a fresh wound—came forward anyway. Preemptively dismissed, even in anonymity (as a drunk, as a liar, as a partisan stooge, and as simply mistaken), Ford made herself public to issue a warning about a person seeking concentrated power over the lives and bodies of women. Her claims have been met by some with urgency and clarity: They must be investigated, many in power have said. But those claims have also been met, revealingly, with a collective shrug by people who see themselves in him but cannot see themselves in her. They weaponize their apathy. They are all Spartacus. They defend each other. And they defend a world in which—as a point of anxiety but also, it seems, as a point of pride—they can all be accused of something.

laklak wrote:OK, so, a far-left professor accuses a SCOTUS nominee of "grinding" on her at a party some 35 years ago. Her husband says she even told her therapist about it. She took a lie detector test but won't release any specifics. She's unsure how many boys were involved. She refuses to testify under oath. She'd like the FBI to investigate. Mind you, the FBI has already conducted several deep background investigations, that happens as a matter of course in ANY federal judicial appointment.

If anyone finds this "evidence" credible then call me, I've got a sweet real estate for you, you'll make a fortune, trust me.

laklak wrote:I'll withdraw "far left", though any professor at a California university is certainly suspect on the face of it. Why wait 35 years? Why sit on the accusations until the hearings are over? Why ask the FBI to investigate a "crime" they would have no jurisdiction over in the first place, assuming you have probable cause to believe ANY crime was committed, and assuming that any statute of limitations had not expired decades ago? How come nobody else remembers it? How come she doesn't know when or where it happened?

Come on, this is gutter politics of the worst sort, and Feinstein is playing this woman like a fish for political gain.

laklak wrote:I'll withdraw "far left", though any professor at a California university is certainly suspect on the face of it. Why wait 35 years? Why sit on the accusations until the hearings are over? Why ask the FBI to investigate a "crime" they would have no jurisdiction over in the first place, assuming you have probable cause to believe ANY crime was committed, and assuming that any statute of limitations had not expired decades ago? How come nobody else remembers it? How come she doesn't know when or where it happened?

Come on, this is gutter politics of the worst sort, and Feinstein is playing this woman like a fish for political gain.