Commentary Podcast: No Exit from Kavanaugh by 076068
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
welcome to the club
Monetary magazine podcast today is Monday October. First, twenty eighteen,
I'm putting words. The other commentary magazine with me today
Meanwhile, our senior editor high Abe. I John sorrow
Marie are senior writer. I saw Rob hello, John, and
commentary columnist Christine rose and high Christine again, no Rossman is out today and we
yet once again doing this through the magic of Skype, absorbing
they are sitting in about a square up, let's say fifty feet from each other and Christine's and Washington's who so we are. So this is the second time we ve done this with Christine, and we are of course, gonna
in the show talking about the issue of the day, which is the you never see the never ending, no exit confirmation of Judge Bread Cavenaugh to the to the Supreme Court.
I feel like there's a point at which you know we're gonna, be here twenty five years from now
we're going to be saying. So when is the weak up that the galactic FBI investigation, you know, will return from the moon having asked questions about in outbreak, Havanas trip to the bathroom on March? Second,
one thousand nine hundred and seventy nine, maybe it hasn't been that long. It's only only felt like that long, but, of course, we're here now, three days into the week that Jeff like the
dead and the Senate Republicans and the White House acceded to a further FBI investigation into whatever the FBI is being permitted to investigate
the course of this week that has arisen in the question of bread cabinet was behaviour, is a teenager in college student.
Do I have that right? That's Andrade! Ok, ok! So
about unto as ranted on the last show about the continuing term. Lack of a presumption of
of innocent standard and and
whole notion of attacking Cavanaugh for being the most
Molly wounded end and expressing deep
pain and anger at the inside
see a way in which the entire world seem to feel it had the right to call him a gang rape, rapists and various other things. So if we can move on with that to talk more generally, maybe about.
What it is that the forces arrayed against Cavanaugh hope to achieve
in this line of attack against him, since, since all of them were applied,
It was to his nomination, some of them literally minutes after his nomination was announced,
one can presume that what they hope to achieve is that he doesn't get on the Supreme Court, but failing that, what is it that they hoped to achieve, meaning unless the FBI comes up with new information that that addresses and answers
in the negative Jeff flakes concern, meaning the F b? I find some new credible charge that it? Maybe it cannot them the corroborate, but if it it can,
dismiss, let's say, and this flips Jeff Lake from a yes to a no and therefore kind of puts pressure on centres com
Then we can get a foot from yes to know and therefore his nomination goes up in smoke. So assume that doesn't happen. What do the forces arrayed against cabin? I hope to achieve this week worthy of yet I am you know if, unfortunately, last week's, where did the week was gang,
rape this week. It's all temperament. This is that this is the word that everybody throwing around now and
from what I understand what I've read so far. The effort seems to be to undermine his
credibility as a judge by attacking his temperament based on his performance front, the Senate. So it's it's a really interesting trap right that he's the. If he'd not shown any emotion, he would have been labelled a sociopath, but now the question is: can someone who's, angry and and obviously had said something that was mildly partisan can
man actually be an effective judge size. The temperament argument will succeed in undermining his credibility and, ultimately, the credibility of the institution of the court, if he's confirmed, which is, is bad for all of us. It's bad reverend, whether or not you like bread cabin. I want to see him on the court. It's it's just very bad
the country. Well, you know. Last week we saw a rogue effort by the President of the American BAR Association
that is a Democrat and Helen Hillary Clinton supporter he essentially broke from his own judicial rating Standing Committee and issued a statement calling for an FBI, investigation, bread, Cavanaugh,
To its credit, the these standing committee, which normally is, is very much an ideological body because it tends to re highly qualified conservative judges as under qualified in this case they stuck to their guns and they
That statement does not reflect the views of the Judicial Ratings committee and they stuck by them
well qualified rating for Judge Cavanaugh. Nevertheless, I mean, I think, that's one of the things you ve started to see is pressure on on that that Committee of the American BAR Association to River
its rating merely in light of what the what was in evidence in terms of his temperament at the hearing- and I you know, look, I hope there will be a stick to its guns in this case and sticks through his today to his well qualified rating upholds it.
I just think. I hope a lot of Americans can see through how outrageous
this is you know four, for example, for centred Diane Feinstein to ask the judge point blank about the most scurrilous of the accusations against him by this woman Julie, sweat, Nick represented by Michael over ninety one of this sort of most ridden and and logically impart plausible set of accusations in her sworn declaration and say well, lead you didn't do
deny being a serial gang rapists and four for him to not get angry ever. What do you expect from you? I hope people see through
that I don't know. I guess I guess people will see through through partisan lenses. You know it
to me about the emphasis now on temperament- is that they ve gotten their FBI probe. I mean what why shouldn't shouldn't.
Is now be, and even if they ve got the F b, I programme they ve got the sort of guide map of you no dirty.
Teenage yearbook. Sayings till two doo doo doo doo their deep dive into. I mentioned the focus beyond it on
Europe approving his lies and and and and seeing what the F b I can dig up. They get that's all. That is what it was. That is, that is when Christine said that we shifted to
no temperament, we ve also shifted to this notion that he just live. He lied alone. He lied about dead. These terms, he lied about how much he drank,
lied about drinking. He lied about drinking age. Live he live. You lie about in point of fact: there is no evidence that he live.
Got any of this unless you, unless you accept all of the other details, disputed details. This fact, in which case
The lies here or many of the lies here are immaterial because what he would have what he is charged with as much worse. So that's one thing, the other thing
Is that the wise that the charge that he is a liar is me
choosing to me, and it is a dilemma, deeply cynical way, which is to say that the entire Senate,
confirmation process in my lifetime- ah pretty much from,
our letter, my adult lifetime, pretty much from Bork onward, let's say, has been the
story of how the.
Nominee figures out. All sorts of
ways, not to answer the questions that that he or she is being asked by
talking like a soothsayer. Were you know, coming up with
no mesh incomprehensible?
utterances in answer to questions about what he might or she might do on the court that are plainly and obviously disingenuous right, so that at the most
Starck example was when David suitor was nominated to the court. He told the committee on now
television, that not only had he not discussed Roby, weighed in height in college or lost,
all were, or as a judge or in not only hadn't, disgusted with his mother, his best friend, but did he had not had a thought about? Roby wage had not thought about it out and he thought about it. Ok, he was now that is only
possible if he is chance, the gardener or Benjy from the sound and the fury right there is no other cat. There is no other way. Could that could be true and he was come
ninety nine and why did this happen? Why did it happen that that everybody from Briar tubes case sort of my or to Ginsburg head to head to lie about what
believed them what they thought. It was because one board came before the committee. He decided, and it was decided that he should be as candid as possible about his views and he lost the nomination. So the idea was just don't tell of a thing just be as Anna Thine. As you possibly can say, nothing do nothing lie about anything controversial, meaning, say you don't have a view of acts when you have a view of acts, that's a real. Why not like? I don't remember what Devils triangle is on my callin bright and so were at my yearbook so that we are now having this pompous
assertions from these people about how he's lying about what he thought he did what he was sixteen years old when we have been living through a parade of falsity for the past three decades by Supreme Court justices who have their eye and the main prize, which is just get through this and get on the court. You know say what you have to say to get on the court that was totally acceptable to everybody, but now it's not acceptable when you're trying to embarrassingly try to explain your way through your yearbook. I you're because not put primarily embarrassing because of its full of James Taylor and cultural Gibran quotes not
my my only not an eye section. I quoted Charles Dickens, but most of my yearbook there's a lot of college abroad and there it's very embarrassing, but in a very few sexual references I have to admit, but so I mean, but if I had to defend, I don't know
Some note that I wrote some time when I was sixteen- and I was a very straight at sixteen year old who didn't like beer. You know I mean how could you do that so coarse, so why? Who knows? Why would they
the falsity, whether not he remembers? What devils triangle is
its limit
literally the land of like suburban myth? You know these two reports of of of dirty,
games that mean one thing and one town, one thing and another that serve. You know that actual pride making
ever happen anywhere anyway. I mean. Would this is this? Is it deep into nonsense? Well in the contrast between the in his kind of loyally evasions before a Senate committee. In the end, the absolute hailing of of,
therefore it is a you know, truth teller and you know believe women and all of this stuff about the truth. On the one side and the the liar on the other. It's ridiculous. I mean I think in particular Rachel Mitchell's letter to the
and a Republican has just come out is- is extremely damaging in the sensitive just stick to the facts. What we know what we don't know what she was. What Ford herself was inconsistent in reporting the differences between what she richly said in her letter to find Simon and what she said before the full committee. I mean it's just up
point by point analysis of here's. What we know, here's what we don't know and when you, when you think about how often Cavanaugh has been called a liar in the last few weeks, and then you look at the facts and all the claims of truth telling that of redounded afford a it's it's astonishing. Quite frankly, we should serve.
Through this a little bit because it is in his interesting, like I think everybody thought that she made for a sympathetic witness who seem to be very UNESCO like honest about laying out what she thought had happened, but memo lays out things that we
they can only pieced together from you, know, incomplete information right, so it says, first of all, she had told her therapist that this happened, the mid eighties, not the early eighties. She said there were six kids there. Then she said there were four. I can't remember there like. There are like
six or seven inconsistency in the Rachel Mitchell memo that are, you know, Series in Kansas
CS. I learn anything. I don't even know how you can take them as being SIRI like you now. The one about her friend in particular struck me that one about Leland, Keyser
because you know she she has not. No one has corroborated Ford story and the person who Ford named as being capable of corroborating has has repeatedly said. No. I cannot corroborate that, when asked by the Senate, forge response was well she's got health problems, implying that in a perhaps her her inability corroborate was was you know she would cooperate if you didn't have these vaguely reference health problems, I mean, if oh, if I think, about if Cavanaugh had had thrown a female friend under the bus. The wish
that, for did I mean that that really struck a Anne and we don't see the people who she identifies herself has been able to corroborate doing not there's. Just simply,
oh corroboration here and
Christine, I wanted to day get your take on the the Arizona County prosecutor
Rachel Mitchell's report, with today to the Republicans on a committee which was just released. I think last night I
I read it in and a lot of people are pointing painting it as it as a partisan document, but it struck me that it was pretty dispassionate. Any was pretty meticulous in and again I mean she. This prosecutor, Miss Mitchell points out a lot of inconsistencies in in doktor forts testimony and in her various accounts of this incident and dumb
It doesn't it doesn't that, combined with the other, the up already pre existing lack of corroboration.
Think ass, a lot of doubt on her claims. I don't know what you think Christine she saw the document. You know I did. I read it this morning in and she does say Mitchell says outright. Look I'm a republican, but I don't I'm not a partisan. You know advocate I'm just I'm. I'm approaching this as I would a prosecutor gonna looking at a case to see if this is something that we could actually bring to training. Are these actionable claims and then she, as you say, methodically, goes through them and determine
is based on the evidence. Is there, and also, quite frankly, some of the evidence that still hasn't been turned over, like some of the therapists notes and other other evidence affords that she hasn't made available just the inconsistencies and and again this is. I know a lot of people said, and I watched the testimony and I understand why I mean it's. It was very compelling to listen to this woman. Tell her story- and you can't listen to it without thinking something happened to her right, I'm in this, but the question: why
ass is did what happened to her was caused by for a cabinet like did he do it and now, and I think that the what Mitchell started her heard, no doubt with was was also very important. She said this isn't just he said she said we do have some details and facts and they don't add up. So you have to admit this is where I am a slide. Squish
because when I start reading like that Mitchell's report and some other hers social media threads analyzing Ford's testimony, I don't I'm
locked into go down. I got up rapid whole about. Ah she was she looks like you
being deceptive here or there, because I know I just don't know about termed the memory of trauma and end, and you know what
but what that may or may not due to some. But for me it's enough that there is no corroboration. There is no evidence, and that, and at the story doesn't hang together were to be fair, so Mitchell does not
go, there rashly literally just lays out the contradictions that that, if you say that someone is incredibly specific about something that happened right and knows vividly indelible in the hippocampus. Is this and that
the other thing, but gets seventeen other details wrong or six other details wrong or changes them over the course of
telling the story three or four different times. He then it's not that you then
The invalidity of the hippocampus maybe needs to be reconsidered, because the hippocampus I made
it picks and chooses. I believe that the more dramatic thing maybe burn
your head in a way that the wet lesser details are, and although, of course, we were told in the nineteen eighties that exactly the opposite is true. If people remember that trauma,
created. Amnesia will remember that right. The whole thing that you were that you could you
could recover memories because you forgot them because they were too traumatic and you had to go through a process of memory retrieval in which you in which it turned out things weren't indelible in the hippocampus, they were doubled in the hippocampus ended and the hippocampus needed to be reminded of all the terrible things to happen. So
Just because she went through a trauma in- and it end is believable someone going through a trauma doesn't mean that when she chip,
the story alters itself over a period of months having been told to three or four different people that that is not problematic, present area when it went when, when trying to determine the fate of another person's life and
why, whenever you get to this point, the antagonists Cavanaugh say: well, that's not what's going on here. This is a job interview. You know in a job interview, you don't sit a crossroads,
Somebody who says you know somebody tells us you're a gang rape or if you were sitting across from somebody in a job interview who said somebody tells us
you're a gang rape, as you might actually think that this is a test of your character and the other way, which is that you're supposed to say how? Dare you call me a gang rapist who the hell do you think you are using just because you hold a job
you won't get you you, you hold them in our job and by potential future that I need to sit here and take this from you. That's also something that happens in the job interview by the way where people are thrown a curveball to see how they react, and if the idea is that he reacted wrongly, which goes to the temper question we began with by by acting as though it wasn't an outrage,
infamy to be accused of these things. I don't know who these people are, who seem to think. Otherwise. I tend to think that their being disingenuous and full of it and that they just are against him and if he and anything that he does to simply adds to the adds to the indictment that should deny him the confirmation,
and and speaking of being disingenuous and full of it, there is a yet another line of attack that has been that has developed since Thursday.
Along the lines I will now Cabinet has revealed himself to be a partisan to actually said, and here cases Hugh he would have to refuse them.
Self, because the way he's alleged it democratic conspiracy in his testimony. This is this. Is this is another. You know their grasp right, well,
I mean the go ahead. I was just as they are along the same lines as the third line of attack. Someone posted a wonderful gift,
Well, it's a sort of animation on the internet of what you're. What liberal?
others are doing right now, and it was an innovation or
footage of a football team moving the goalposts in us in a man of Socrates.
So in another one is that that he is a heavy drinker or had been a heavy drinker, and there are two lines of attack that follow from at one. Is that that means that he,
He did he did he, but the per approach committed virtue or that he was just a drinker leading away. That's problematic, think a boy.
In our by those standards of the Eu Drinking College or you fought in college. No one of the very few people should be in public office, and I think I mean the one. The one thing I will say that the partisanship charge based taking around his what he said about the Clinton's in particular. That was the one intemperate remark I think he did make. I watching watching him say that I kind of cringe and thought of it. Doesn't he realized never bring the Clinton's into anything it from us is it up is always a bad idea. So I actually agree with the criticism of that remark, because I think it was unnecessary and and seemed a bit.
Had he can't considering what Elsie was facing fair enough. I actually I've been. I agree with you that would have been much better for him. Had he not set it at all. I don't think it's it's into line with its disqualifying eggs. I guess that's the sense in which he's gone full trompe and right John, I mean that's what you said. I was gonna say we're here's. What I would say, which is that
He's sitting there wherever he is on Thursday and supposedly isn't he said and watch her
child, which I believe, because he completely throughout his statement, wrote a new statement, and that was a forty five minutes, long statement and we're all writers- and we know we know you know just dashed something like that off right. So,
I particularly if it's the most important thing, you're writing for the idea that he would have been watching cuz. He needed to refine his own statement and finish it in time for his testimony strikes me as credible, but let's say he's there, and people are saying you know what she did well
it was pretty good and she did well- and you know, a lot of people are saying on the problem inside she sounded credible. So this is a few views this from, if you take the poorest
active that he is innocent of the charges. He views this as a gigantic personal and political assault and here's what he knows whose
damning by him who standing by him the right like an end and trump is standing by him and what he needs as their passion
and he needs their support, and this is now just a game of Calvin Ball in which there are no rules and
anyone can say anything they want to about him and it immediately becomes part of the public record. So he says to himself if this is Calvin Ball, I'm in fine, I'm going to say. Thank you, President Trump, I'm going to say the Clintons are doing this. I am going to go right for my base because
You know I got nothing else. My chances are. My life is over here anyway, so I'm just gonna. Do.
Whatever it is. I have to do to see if I can and it worked so I'm not saying that in an ideal world he would in an ideal world. He wouldn't say anything. You know in an ideal world, he wouldn't stance, sit there
I have to make this defence of himself, and you know, in the nineteenth century, Oliver Wendell HOMES did not attend his own confirmation. Hearing. That's how
little bit: that's how little it was thought it was necessary in order to protect the court's independence that people needed to go to the Senate, to you know like get there
our advice and consent. So we have a long tradition in which you don't even have to talk to the God. Damn sat, so that's where I kind of defend him as a political player. So is it partisan you damn right? Its parts
and so he's not gonna, unilaterally disarm when there's a partisan assault against him- and I think I ought to defending at I'm not defending it-
I'm trying to analyze it as up as an act cheer by John about it working. This was we already mentioned this on Thursday, but a posts recording it's become even clearer that this has united a broad coalition of the right that I haven't seen essentially
is the Trump phenomenon caused this rupture on the party of the right, I mean everyone.
From your libertarians who insist on on due process and presumption of innocence to the vast majority of social conservatives are few social Ex conservatives accepted who are pining for Amy Coney Barrett and who now see this as an opportunity to to ditch cabinet and go with a better choice but other than those few social conservatives are outraged about this Trump peons Anti Trump peons Jonah Goldberg too.
You know, match lap of of sea pack, and everyone in between you know I mean that's, I'm done listing the kind of the athenian sphere of the right. Who knows what effects having on on voters buddy. I me I can't think of a moment when the right has come together like this, since two thousand anyway, since Trump was divided. The party right well, there's word from Republican
consultants and things that there has been an up taken republican enthusiasm over the last week,
we'll see you now. I mean it's also been such an object
in democratic hysteria, our liberal hysteria that make that may be indistinguishable from enthusiasm,
whatever you know, whatever benefit Republicans have gained, has been offset by a comparable game in a democratic rage, but we only talk about what the possible let's wood said advocates will see, because I'm came to my mind. The democratic rage or the democratic enthusiasm was there already, and this is showed any issues. If there can be any mutual wrapping up to extend, it could be mutual. I think it's going to benefit the Republicans because they're the ones it needed it where's, or will it let's talk about that? But let's talk by that after go into that more deeply after I talk to about ancestry, DNA, which is a kind of two continues
answer us after I think it's now been on the like. Almost a solid three weeks of ancestry, dna sponsorship of the commentary amazing podcast cause you know with ancestry DNA, the leading consumer dna tests, you'll learn a more complete story of you. You can find your origins and worthless.
Hundred fifty regions around the world, that's two times more geographic detail than any other dna test. All it takes is a simple task that can be done from the comforts of your home.
More than ten million people have discovered their story with ancestry DNA. They offer an interactive and informative experience that uniquely connects you with your genealogy and heritage.
Ancestry. Dna combines advance dna science with the world's largest online family history database tracing your ancestors migration journeys through time, there's so much
we're about yourself in your own story and fortune,
now as out no was the one who has been going through this. You know getting clay
collecting the information, get sending the kid out to ancestry DNA in getting getting the results that term that prove that he is a. He is a cultural melting pot of a human being
of a remarkable and fascinating their details about his his past.
Though we have a year, we have a winter. There are, of course, told us that yeah he
is that only to reaffirm the solidity of his ancestry. Would that be right? Abe, Moliere
no actually I would there was for four weird serve family myth reasons. I was not entirely sure
what I was gonna see, but I was fairly sure and it turned out, I'm as as European Jewish, as you can get, did people think that there was a there was a gentle in the
wood pile that I was somebody in two to be honest mahars, mostly, I thought I had. I have sanctions. I add suspicions about the about earlier, but ok well, so so aims suspicions work were proved dispelled where'd, you spell we're not corroborated, so go to ancestry, dot, com, slash commentary today for twenty percent off your ancestry. Dna: kid, that's ancestry, dotcom slashed commentary for twenty percent off your ancestry, dna, kid ancestry, dotcom, slash, commentary, okay, so more generally speaking, the question that has of that has haunted people over the last couple of days on the
eight and who we are all to chicken or a lot of us or to chicken to serve explore this to openly for fear of sounding, as though we are belittling Lee cars,
actual assault and culture of veto. Sexual libertinism. There
has led to much mistreatment of women, let's say but.
From Centre Maisie Horatio on that there has been a general tone in the public Congress
action on cable news and and on a bed page
All of that that what is going on here is a reckoning for the mail for
the american mail that are the amount
Male has been in a position of dominance, power dominance in
extra relations, and I feel feeling from
to behave in ways that constitutes
sugar, salt or worse for decades, and that where this is a reckoning moment were beyond Harvey, wine seemed into a general reckoning with the behaviour of boys, adolescence, white boys, white catholic boys, prep school boys, privilege, boys and there
The question that this comes up is, I have a son Christine has two sons sort has a son, you know we're also voters and if we were voted
who were not necessarily particularly aligned, one where the other or persuadable one, where the other. I will frankly confess that this stuff scares me for my son. It scares me that
civic culture of the United States is moving inexorably to a view that they look at him and see a potential rapist Christine do yes, I I
no, no hesitation at all about saying. I think this is this is as the mother of sons of had for his efforts of cutting hates. But in fact this this is about boys because I think you're absolutely right. If you just do it quick sampling of some of the things that have been written and said about young men and young white men in particular in the last week, it is fairly appalling. I mean I think there was one my first. My first statement would be that everyone should follow the advice of any was Matthew, Dowd, who wrote a p saying. You know I am a I'm a christian white man. I am the problem and an all resign went on all these liberal way. You know men just step off and let the women you know take over because
If they had the courage of our convictions, obviously this is not happening as for the behaviour of boys, this affects girls to, and this is why I think this kind of rhetoric that were seeing from the left is extremely dangerous, not just for boys, but also for girls, because as we, if there's a, if there's this kind of suspicion
of guilt until proven innocent. Let me we were
Joking around before we started the podcast, but it it might not end up being a joke that mean when our kids are old enough.
Start dating. We should send a lawyer, along with them, to take copious note if they ever hope to have any sort of position where they might have to account for their behaviors teenagers. But this is bad for boys and girls. Its is, it leads to mutual hostility and distrust it doesn't allow
first clear communication and allows for no nuance and, quite frankly, no opportunity to work.
Through these rules in a way that more respectful of each party has boys and girls are different
in many different ways, but boys are also different.
Each other I mean you know the bro culture. Discussions have been fascinating to listen to in part, because if you look it at Brett, Cavanaugh Group of
friends, not all of them turned out so well right, not not all of them who engage in this kind of behaviors. Some of them suffered lifelong consequences. In terms of their profession,
careers in their personal lives. So it's not as if you know every guy goes to Georgia. Prepping yell turns out to be a horrible. You know proto rape, his brow and the fact that the left is so
Eager to seize on that narrative, I think long term is gonna. Do damage not just their credibility but to women as well, so I'm Peggy Orange Steam, who is a server?
pop sociologist of some nature rights, books, she's written so
RO books about girls, in particular a fascinating book. She wrote about the horror that she discovered as
feminist living in the Bay area. That heard three zero
daughter, love, Disney, princesses and and- and she had done everything she
to raise her daughter and a gender neutral environment with respect for women and all of that, and to see her to see that this beloved child of hers one
really dress- wanted to dress. Like aerial or jasmine or something light, was really horrifying to her and should forced her to examine her own presumptions about things and then she would
call: girls, insects, which is about the ways in which girls under cut the feminist message in in their own worlds. By focusing on cloning,
stuff like that, so she has an op, Ed New York Times yesterday called weekend. Just let boys be boys and I'm still read a little bit of it, because this is this is the future and the present. For the past two years I have been interviewing high school
knowledge men for a book on their experience of physical and emotional intimacy. I am not convinced they
always reliable narrators over their own experience. At times I could almost see the
shadow of a girl behind them, as they speak, a girl who was furious traumatized grieving over harms, big and small. When question simply didn't recognize, you didn't want to add
I'm point our conversation, these young men usually for themselves as good guys, and mostly, I would say they were. They also all been duly admire by some adult in their lives to respect women, but that alone
don't get any when pregnant was pretty much the totality of their sex education. She says
there is now a broader understanding. Young women are most likely to be assaulted by an acquaintance rendered date. No one, and especially not parents of boys, wants to make a true reckoning of what that means. We still
one: a rapist to be monsters, exceptions, degenerates, was expulsion from the community solves the problem, so they in a quick
informal survey on Thursday, so my interview subjects homely and I'm Christine body for its testimony that bread cabinet placed his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. They were discussed
They said that neither data or their friends would ever do such a thing, and I believe them, but that repellent detail also allowed them to distance them.
Elsa more common coercive or non consensual bet behind
That too many young men do. It gave him so in essence, boys, even if they don't do the thing that made what happened to Christine Blasi Ford, a sexual assault, they are still guilty of sexual assault. The thing that made that story- a story sexual saw was the hand over the mouth right that,
really the detail light as in the Lucy case story, the reason that Lucy K was not chargeable as a criminal was because he had never laid a hand.
The on either of the girls women who were in his hotel room if he had touched them on the shoulder with a pinky that would have constituted while they tried to leave that would have constituted a form of salt under under the law of the state that he was in them. This peace highlights
the complete totality of this view, which is that, even when boys don't rape their raping, even when boys aren't attempting to
any movement that they might make on a war that a woman decides is hostile, is hostile. Where's, though it can't be yeah go to address these issues in and worse, she's positing a kind of male false consciousness right, so even when they say I would never do this. This is horrifying she's like, but they are doing
at a distance themselves from the reality. The fact that their all rape potential rape as a means to eat there you're right it's an absolute metalogy. It's it's deeply disturbing me. This is, I think, a com. This is now the extra
opinion. This is a mainstream opinion. Now I think that I certainly as if argued on his back as having
It is time to re, evaluate the sexual.
Duration is consensus, bear that came about in the nineteen sixties, but I think that revaluation has to happen a in a rational, thoughtful way and not in a sort of state of perpetual more
panic I mean, but these things never happen in a rational far away they almost always. The pendulum swings back and made a moral panic and kind of frenzy. So that's a sort of
a pie in the sky aspiration on my part, but certainly I mean I think it should be a discussion on on on restraints,
on both sides I mean I, you know, as a recent convert to Catholicism will be teaching my son everything about book, the catholic sexual ethic and all the restraints it implies.
This is because it sees the act of human sexuality, is so sacred that it should only be bound up in the married contacts between
man and woman everywhere else, so I will but, but that you know it cannot be. They won't work. Their renewal won't happen,
If society as a whole says do everything you want, there are no restrains, but if you miss, set the wrong way, one second and peep, based purely on the subjective judgment of the accused, your life will be ruined. That's that's no kind of reformation other a few there. There ve been a few canaries in the coal mine. If, as as it were with this, which, as you know, some of the and the New York Times it a story about,
these parents, not long ago the parents of male students who been accused under title nine regulations on college campuses of rape and sexual assault and the parents of banded together to kind of to challenge the the process itself, which did not even allow
them to confront their accusers in, and you know, get any sort of information about there being accused of Anne and why what's interesting to me as it whenever this discussion comes up more broadly in the culture, we always have, the name Brok, Turner in the sort of rape as to everybody, thought was given the lenient sentencing in a look. The here's here's the perfect example of the kind of vicious Raby white male, but we don't hear about all of the falsely accused students either, and we have to hear about both if, as syrup is actually right, we start wheat. We're gonna, have this conversation and figure out what the rules and boundaries are, because all of those men their stories matter what has happened to them or what they did in brought Turner's case. Those all have to come into play, and I feel like Johns right that this narrative of all male all men are potential. Rapists doesn't allow for the fact that most parents are struggling to teach their kids about these lessons in and it's a challenge, and I think one when from when the access Hollywood video came out about Trump. I had a discussion with my son's about consent.
You know behaving mean they heard the stories, and there is a lot of discussion at school about it and we talked about it and you know day these things come up and there are not necessarily. There are legal definitions for all of this, but then there are moral choices that have to be made and I think the deep
moral arguments are all being made on one side of this debate and there isn't enough of a more
agreement being made on the kind of culturally conservative side of it that that's being heard in the mainstream discussion for sure I've got up until this very moment, I feel, like
you would have. Certainly, a man would have brought up the phenomenon of false
rape accusations at his own peril. It's very scary thing
bring up in and if someone is would extend, someone would have been willing to listen and would have been all poor, all the poor, guys so sorry to hear that they have too. You know
counter, the occasional regulation, without any real sense of of the weight of the other end, the destruction that that that can actually cause- and I think, on some level, because what happened last week
was so exposure for both sides. I think there's a loosening of that. I think men
and women and people who don't want
The sea people's lives ruined with insufficient evidence in sufficient proof- and they are
loser. Now are willing to actually open their magazines and say no look far false. False accusations happen. You know, and and not all not as in infrequently is, as is we'd like to think that in this gets me unless I believe women stuff, I mean I've, I've, u dont. Women are human beings right. That was the whole message of the feminist movement in its in its equality days. Right. If we're human beings were capable of making mistakes, women lie. Women bear false, witness women miss remember just as men do so. This believe women Ike. I understand the motivation behind
the hashtag, but it's doing more harm than good. I mean this is a weird agreement. That what's interesting, is that the believe women is a is an extension
any we framing of something that happened in the nineteen eighties in relation to the child, sexual abuse, charges that were almost all
entirely false, which was the activists in this world?
said. We need to believe the children. We must believe the children. Why
with the children, lie what the chill we have to believe our children, because if we do
believe them? They won't know that they can trust and that that we trust them and we have to believe children. So obviously women are not children.
And one should believe a the testimony or the words of an adult who is putting her cell for her
again today on the wine by you know, by by making a public charge, assuming that, in fact, it is public and therefore, as is true in our view of the accused, has to be able to confront the accuser, which is why we're supposed to know the identities of people who who accuse people with things. However,.
Under there is no crime on earth about which we simply immediately say believe the accuser
There has to be more than believing the accuser. There has to be evidence. There has to be detail, there has to be called in other, has to be circumstantial evidence corroborating evidence, physical evidence in a burglary. He fell in a in in a regulation with somebody came and you know stab view. You need to actually
prove that you didn't stab yourself or are you not demonstrate you didn't do this to yourself just to just to nail
somebody, you hate, and even more tellingly in this matter, the idea that people don't lie about. This is below
by the sheer numbers of charges that we know are levied every day in custody cases in divorce cases in separation and Raymond cases where,
people quite casually say there's their ex abuse, the kids and therefore they should have full custody or greater man of child support or whatever. This is something that divorce worse talk about. It is common. It is, you know, so that you know, because its
Not the charging itself, isn't a criminal charge by the way. It's usually assembled. It's a it's a it's a it's in a divorce court, so you know it's not like charges are sworn out against its that somebody says it and I'm in a deposition says my husband was abusive to my child, like it's, not true that people don't make false allegations,
sexual assault. It is not true. That is why it is a lie that people don't do it. People do it. I mean maybe they'll do at sixty percent of the time and, as I have said here before, what
motivation. Could somebody have for lying about this? If convinced by herself or by others that she could change,
the course of history. By doing so, that's it that's a good incentive, that's a quiet! He incentive! That's not just like. I want some attention that is, that is you know something. American history is gonna change because of me well,
that also brings up something that I think and Rachel Mitchell's letter. One thing she does at the end is append a kind of chronology that that raises a huge number of questions about how this process was handled by the Democrats and by fine sign, in particular the de confusion of lazy forward. When she was asked when she was told that it owed the offer had been made to fly to California so that she wouldn't have to come to Washington the offer to do these things in private. She seemed not to have known about that, which suggest, perhaps the new
of the the hero stepping forth at the you know, last minute to change. History was being told her by her lawyers in order to encourage her to get up there and testify when maybe she would rather have had that private session and talk to send it staffers or to senators in a way that that
preserved her anonymity or at least a little bit more of a privacy? I think that when all the dust settles with this nomination, the process questions about what went on in the Senate with regard to this nomination should be thoroughly vetted and really looked into, not just by journalists but but internally by by sentenced offers in the Senate.
They are well, that's gonna happen again. I think this is what this will end. This will end and every it will go down the rabbit whole except the children.
A memoir? And you know, and then
we will have. We will have a
Now, a narrative about him for the rest of his life that people will will raise, although I do believe that the notion that this is gonna go on forever. If he's confirmed.
And that you know, Democrats will look to impeach him and all that, if they get the house of the Senate is belied by the fact that a presuming
Democrats get the house they're gonna their new to me
the chairman and the new committee staff are going to launch a million investigations into the Trump administration, and that will be that will that will be the thing that everybody focuses on
that we will move on from this. However, I think the ultimate question is Friday is when this investigation is supposed to wrap up, because they they were given a week
and I don't see any way again absent and F B. I find
at new finding of a credible something or other than this.
Does it in the end go through, I mean that's, why you're wondering what their game is
so they they put other chips on the FBI investigation. They get it from the minute that it starts they're, trying to discredit it by
saying that its lead, limited in scope and the time limit is false and all that. So, if the investigations bad, what do they say? It returned something up right. What about turn? Something up that it will have been great right,
does the most wonderful thing, laudanum, don't forget it memory, how their complaints about it. How about this? The F b? I investigation terms up nothing there,
complain about how terrible it is, and he fires Rosans time on the grounds that they have been investigation was incompetent. Just I'm just you now say that deep state, the deep state protected Cavenaugh, but by the way for what it's worth so, just as I think the cavernous enemies and detractors went
way too far in buying into and publicizing these additional claims. They, though, the though one uncovered by running far and Jane, mirror the one the accused
represented by Michael have a knotty just as these they built up is preposterous circumstances that ended up fuelling Cavanaugh righteous rage when it when he, when he got into God, got into two to speak on his own behalf,
I think it's happening again in that I be hysteria now over cavernous temperament over
Where did the true meaning of these these yearbook reference is, there is their working themselves up again, I think, into an into a laughable frenzy that is going to buy them somehow at the end of this week, because because whatever the the FBI delivers is gonna, be humdrum.
Could be also could be that you are also debated. The battle lines are drawn. It really doesn't matter now. What anybody thinks about not minds. Aren't gonna change her
mine's aren't gonna change sufficiently in any direction that it will have any observable effect so either way, including if they find something that doesn't mean the republican support is gonna melt down, because I think the supporters of cabin on now
I believe that there is a will. There is a m a mob out to get him and they have the the intemperate nature of the attacks on him go.
Dad deep into his drinking and everything else is exactly the sort of thing will make it impossible
for them to believe further charges. That's you know, I mean if you, if you throw everything but
in the kitchen sink it somebody, the people, people that you might need to
Believe you- and this is what happened with Lindsey Gram. It's like you know what it's all a lie. That's, what lose her hand said last week right. You know it out believe any of this. Isn't that not a word of it's true! I mean if everything strew, nothing
True every year, you're, just all you're doing a spring of just looking to discredit the sky and destroy them, and I think that's all that that is an opinion that will be common on the right. I think, anyway spell we come to the end of another, very temperate that I think all of our temperaments of now. Well, I don't think we're getting through consultations, but I'm saying
maybe maybe Christie. Maybe I may, sooner or later I'm a statement. Even IRA able IRA we're toast were Sancho where we are totally son.
I have not even thought about abortion ever, and you know that was true for about two twelve seconds. There goes there were twelve seconds in the last year, the
anyway. I so I thank you Christine firm for Europe for four joint ass, again infer a balance or I'm John Paul warrants, keep the candle burning
Transcript generated on 2019-12-12.