The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

I’m going to confess, right at the outset, that I am not a woman. Most of the time anyway. So maybe I haven’t got the right to weigh in on these Kavanaugh confirmation hearings. And maybe I’m out of line to criticize the President for mocking Christine Blasey Ford at his rallies where the crowd, the same crowd he hollered Lock Her Up Lock Her UP, offered up thunderous support. Dr. Ford was victimized again but maybe I’m not the best person to come to her defense. Or any of the millions of others who were basically assaulted by this bully president.

A lot of the folks at those rallies, I noticed, were women. Well, white women. Okay, they’re entitled to their own opinions and just because Dr. Ford was of their gender doesn’t mean they have to believe her or her accusations. I get that. But it’s seriously troubling to witness them give full throated mockery to her and yeah, I know, I’m a guy so I might consider stepping back on this issue, let the survivors of sexual assaults fight this fight. Pretty obviously they’re on their own. They won’t get any help from this Congress and it looks like, today anyway, they won’t get any from the Supreme Court for years, if not decades, to come. In other words the full weight of the United States government, its constitution, its laws, they’re all bearing down on any woman who dares to accuse her attacker. Obviously America won’t believe her.

And of course I believe everyone should be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Yah, maybe I’m troubled that the FBI investigation was curtailed and obviously circumscribed. You can’t prove someone guilty if you can’t do a proper investigation, but hey, these hearings needed to be expedited apparently and if a thorough investigation would have taken longer, sorry, time’s up. I could argue that this wasn’t a criminal trial and guilt or innocence wasn’t really the goal, that character and veracity were what was on trial. In the end the only thing on trial was Dr. Ford. And of course the senators themselves who brought a criminal prosecutor in as stand-ins for themselves rather than risk seeming, oh, accidentally misogynistic. She put out a report that Ms. Ford’s accusations wouldn’t rise to the level of criminal charges. Of course Ford wasn’t seeking criminal redress. And supposedly this wasn’t a courtroom. Even if the Republicans did bring in a prosecutor.

I know, I’m a guy. Not my fight. Not my place. And today it feels like it’s not my country. If I were a woman, I’d absolutely know it’s not.

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