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Liars have no place on the Supreme Court

When five Florida women in a Republican focus group were asked by a CNN reporter how they viewed the sexual assault allegation levelled by Christine Blasey Ford against Judge Brett Kavanaugh when he was 17 years old, some of their answers astounded and infuriated me.
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When five Florida women in a Republican focus group were asked by a CNN reporter how they viewed the sexual assault allegation levelled by Christine Blasey Ford against Judge Brett Kavanaugh when he was 17 years old, some of their answers astounded and infuriated me.

Asked if they believed Kavanaugh when he said he never assaulted Ford, all said they believed him. They also said they had no sympathy for Ford, an attitude I find cold and unfeeling.

Said one, “What high school boy hasn’t done this?” Spoken like one of the parents among Kavanaugh’s school friends who were absent while their teens partied at their house with no adult supervision whatsoever.

To quote a comment posted on a website by one reader, “It is insulting to men to take the attitude that oh, he was only 17, all guys do dumb stuff when they are young. I think men who commit sexual assault are the exceptions, not the rule. Most men do not try to grab just any woman and force themselves on her when drunk. Men are not testosterone zombies incapable of controlling their sexual impulses just because they are 17 and had some beers. I have more respect for men than that. If there is truth to the allegation, then Kavanaugh is indeed unfit for the Supreme Court.”

I never had a son, but I have three brothers, many cousins, nephews and uncles. For a mother to flippantly claim, “What high school boy hasn’t done this?” is truly an insult to them, every decent man and their caring parents.

Kavanaugh claims he never attended a house party where Ford was present, though I have to wonder how he would remember anyway since according to his friends and yearbook he was a drunkard and Ford says the night of the assault when he locked her in the bedroom he was stumbling drunk.

Asked, “Now 36 years later, should the allegation stand in the way of him becoming a supreme court judge?” their replies ranged from, “No” to “If that instance was the only time, it wouldn’t matter” to “You can’t let one incident ruin the rest of his life.” One woman argued you can’t judge the character of a man based on something he did 30 or 40 years ago.

But keep in mind, that one alleged incident ruined years of Professor Ford’s life. She moved far from Maryland to finish her education; can’t sleep in a room without an outside door; and panics when confined such as in an airplane. To travel from her home in Palo Alto, California to Washington, D.C. for the senate investigation of her allegation she may have to drive; flying is too stressful for her.

One younger woman in the focus group said, “It was only a touch”, as she gently placed her hands on the arm of the woman sitting beside her.

It was far more than a touch. Ford said during the assault Kavanaugh lay on top of her to hold her down, placed a hand over her mouth to prevent her screaming for help, and kept it there until she feared she would die from oxygen deprivation. That was a touch?

Whether or not Brett Kavanaugh is elevated to the position of a supreme court judge, since Maryland has no statute of limitations on sexual assault, Ford could lay a criminal charge against him later and see him in court complete with witnesses following a police investigation. If he’s lying, that comeupance would satisfy me.