My dog and I tend to believe Dr. Ford

I have held off writing about the Brett Kavanaugh nomination because, I figured, there is little I could add to what’s been said already and will continue to be said as this saga plays out to its conclusion.

I do have an opinion, however, and no one else has written about that, so here it goes:

I was walking my dog on the day it was announced that a California college professor named Christine Blasey Ford had written a letter claiming that Kavanaugh – faux-president Donald Trump’s second nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court – had attempted to rape her when they were both in high school. He “categorically” denied the accusation and a classic he said/she said scenario began to take shape.

At the time, few facts had emerged, so it was left to our imaginations to determine what had actually occurred…and I have a pretty active imagination. I’m the kind of person who likes to think things through, whether it concerns some issue with my wardrobe or my car or my house or the legitimacy of a Supreme Court nomination.

Also, walking your dog is a good activity for thinking and using your imagination, because while you can talk to the dog all you want, she can’t reply to your comments and is only marginally interested anyway as long as there are things to smell and explore, so you might as well live inside your own head during that time.

So there I was, walking Lucy and thinking about Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh and a theme kept flowing through my brain. Actually it started with a scene from a movie, but I’ll get to that later. In the present tense, she was claiming that he assaulted her and he was saying he didn’t, so at least one of them was not telling the truth.

So was it her, I wondered? What did she have to gain by making her accusations, assuming they are true? As far as we know, she isn’t getting paid for coming forward, isn’t auditioning for a reality TV show and wasn’t planning a book. I mean, she didn’t even want her name released until other people started trying to tell her story for her, so her potential gain was zero, as far as I could see, other than just doing the right thing for the country.

But what could she lose? Well, how about everything? Loss of reputation, loss of credibility, maybe loss of her job and her friends and her peers, not to mention years of therapy for having to sit down with the whole world watching and retell a story that was so painful it took her many years and many visits to a counselor to reveal. And that’s not to mention the inevitable death threats that have forced her and her family to move from their home and go into virtual hiding.

In short, regardless of what happens from here on out, her life will never be the same – not ever – and it will probably be much worse instead of better for doing what she considers to be the right thing.      

He, on the other hand, has everything to gain by denying the accusation and everything to lose if it is true. His whole career – starting with the Georgetown Prep days when the assault allegedly occurred right up through college, law school and the judiciary – has led him to where he sits today, on the doorstep of the highest court in the United States. If Dr. Ford’s allegations are false or not believed, he’ll receive a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court where he could easily serve for 40 years and help shape American culture in the conservative Republican mold.

On the other hand, what does he have to lose? See the paragraph above, and add in his reputation, his credibility and the likelihood that he’ll ever again sit on a judicial bench anywhere above Traffic Court in Weewalken, North Dakota, or some such place.        

The stakes in this one are high.

During my walk, I couldn’t help thinking about the Al Pacino character who was solicited to represent a judge accused of raping and beating an innocent woman in the movie, “And Justice for All,” and the climactic scene where he gives up the guilty judge.

“My client should go straight to (effing) jail,” Pacino shouts to the jury. “He raped and beat this woman and he’d like to do it again. He told me so.” And then he turns to the judge and says, “You’re supposed to stand for something.”

I know it’s only a movie, but the parallels were unavoidable inside my imagination. You had a judge, a rape, an innocent victim and, supposedly, “justice for all” according to the American system. Pacino even asks the question about the victim: “Why would she lie?”

Why indeed?

So taking it all into account, I still don’t know who is telling the truth and who is not, and in reality, we may never really know, so the issue comes down to whom we choose to believe. Applying my imagination and my sense of logic – and only slightly influenced by Al Pacino – I tend to believe Dr. Ford. I mean, I don’t know why she would make up a story like this and put herself through the hell she is now experiencing if the incident had never occurred.

And Kavanaugh? He was nominated for the court by a pathological liar and has already been accused of lying to Congress multiple times, so it’s not a stretch to believe he’s not telling the truth once again. Why would he lie? A better question is, “Why would he not?”

Finally, I asked my dog Lucy what she thought and she looked at me and barked. I’m taking that to mean that she agrees with me, which might be because I’m the guy who walks her every day but more likely, it’s because Lucy – like Dr. Ford – has no good reason to lie.