Someone Please Get Señor Trumpanzee A Hanky

Trumpanzee, always delighted to play the fool and play the victim, whined during a Hill.TV interview that "I don’t have an attorney general. It’s very sad." Get me a box of tissues, quick. "I’m not happy at the border, I’m not happy with numerous things, not just this... I’m so sad over Jeff Sessions because he came to me. He was the first senator that endorsed me. And he wanted to be attorney general, and I didn’t see it. And then he went through the nominating process and he did very poorly. I mean, he was mixed up and confused, and people that worked with him for, you know, a long time in the Senate were not nice to him, but he was giving very confusing answers. Answers that should have been easily answered. And that was a rough time for him."

Apparently someone had prevailed upon Trump not to call Sessions a dumb Southern hick again and not to denigrate his southern accent. ('Bad for the dumb Southern hick vote, your highness.') Let me bring this up again before going further into the morass of a what passes for reasoning:

"He gets in and probably because of the experience that he had going through the nominating when somebody asked him the first question about Hillary Clinton or something he said 'I recuse myself, I recuse myself.' And now it turned out he didn’t have to recuse himself. Actually, the FBI reported shortly thereafter any reason for him to recuse himself. And it’s very sad what happened... We’ll see what happens. A lot of people have asked me to do that [fire Sessions]. And I guess I study history, and I say I just want to leave things alone, but it was very unfair what he did. And my worst enemies, I mean, people that, you know, are on the other side of me in a lot of ways, including politically, have said that was a very unfair thing he did. We’ll see how it goes with Jeff. I’m very disappointed in Jeff. Very disappointed."

Late yesterday, Ashley Parker and Phil Rucker wrote for the Washington Post that Señor Trumpanzee’s "declaration that 'I don’t have an attorney general' was not merely the cry of an executive feeling betrayed by a subordinate. It was also a raw expression of vulnerability and anger from a president who associates say increasingly believes he is unprotected-- with the Russia investigation steamrolling ahead, anonymous administration officials seeking to undermine him and a referendum looming in the Nov. 6 midterm elections, the results of which could potentially lead to impeachment proceedings... Publicly, at least, Trump is going through the ordinary motions of being presiden… Behind the scenes, however, Trump is confronting broadsides from every direction-- legal, political and personal." Mavis, where that tiny violin? Bring it here. Or, better yet, let's all read Adele Stans' powerful piece for the American Prospect yesterday, I Know Why Sexually Assaulted Women Resist Coming Forward; I’ve Been There. "To name your attacker," she wrote, "is to invite vilification by a society more inclined to believe him than you." Right-- and no violins needed.

At first glance, the willingness of the Republican majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee to call a hastily organized hearing on Monday to examine allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that she was sexual assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh may look like an attempt at fairness, but it’s not. In fact, it demonstrates several of many reasons that women often don’t come forward after being the target of sexual assault or misconduct.

The fact that the committee refuses to allow an investigation of Ford’s claim that Kavanaugh attacked her sexually at a party when they were both in high school-- whether by the FBI or another neutral entity with expertise in the examination of sexual assault allegations-- shows that the committee Chairman Charles Grassley is more interested in quickly dispensing with Ford’s allegation. And he plans to do so in a setting that places Ford in jeopardy of being maligned on national television, echoing the power imbalance that nearly always exists between a sexual assault survivor and the perpetrator. Only here, that imbalance is exponentially exacerbated by the resources and political power behind Kavanaugh and his nomination to the highest court in the land.

Once the existence of her letter to Representative Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, was leaked to The Intercept, and Ford, who had requested anonymity, felt compelled to come forward (given the near certainty that the leaking of her name was imminent), her vilification by right-wing media and derision by Republicans on the committee was ensured.

Foremost among the suspicion-mongers on the committee and conspiracy theorists of the right was the question, why did she take so long to come forward?

I know why. It’s the same reason I never came forward when, in 1979, I was raped in my dorm room by an acquaintance. And you know what? I never will likely name my attacker, unless in the unlikely event that he ever comes up for a lifetime appointment on the federal judiciary. And even in that circumstance, I’d have to give it a good long think before I did.

My reasons for not doing so are likely similar to those for which Ford was reluctant to make public her claim against Kavanaugh. I wouldn’t have expected the men who still hold power over prosecutions and the institutions of society to have advocated for me. I believe I would have been painted as a liar and loose girl of low morals. After all, I had been drinking. I had been part of the party before I went to bed. (And, unlike Ford, I had a “reputation.”) I would have been accused of trying to ruin the virtuous life of the attacker, who had a fiancée he planned to marry in the Catholic Church.

In grand scheme of things, there is clearly no benefit to Christine Blasey Ford in having come forward. Her attorney says she’s receiving death threats. Right-wing activists are making false claims about her life, ranging from her ratings as a professor to her parents’ financial woes.

Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, described Ford as “mixed up.” Alas, this is not surprising, given that when Clarence Thomas’s nomination to the Supreme Court was called into question by Anita Hill, Hatch described Hill, a law professor, as confused over the identity of her harasser. Hatch’s colleague, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, called the late revelation of Ford’s allegation against Kavanaugh “a drive-by shooting.”

Without an investigation, how on earth could any woman alleging a sexual attack by a man as powerful as Kavanaugh, to expect a fair hearing of her claim—especially in a setting in which the nominee would not only present his rebuttal, but might also allow for the cross-examination of Ford by Kavanaugh’s attorney, as Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, suggested?

The naysayers invested in Kavanaugh’s ascension to the high court contend that because the attack Ford alleges occurred 36 years ago, no investigation is possible. That is simply not true. Others who attended that party can be located. Classmates can be interviewed. Mark Judge, the Kavanaugh buddy whom Ford says was in the room at the time of the attack, could be summoned.

Any transgression of a sexual nature leaves a permanent mark on the transgressed. In the case of the incident described by Ford, she says that Kavanaugh put his hand over her mouth as he tried to mount her and tear off her clothes. That’s terrifying to contemplate-an action that would be truly traumatizing to the victim, and one that suggests that the perpetrator was well aware that his target had not consented to his despicable brand of fun.

Doesn’t the Senate Judiciary Committee owe it to the American people to thoroughly investigate whether that’s the kind of man who, with his colleagues on the loftiest bench, will have ultimate say over the laws that will shape the lives of generations to come? And doesn’t Christine Blasey Ford have a right to bear witness with facts established by an impartial investigative body?

Anyone who would say “no” to either of those questions cares far more for their own uncontested power than they do for equal justice under law.