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| Trash Can; Charley Freiberg photo |
Kavanaugh. Omigawd me boyo, did the Holy Mother watch that
dramatic act you put on last week, do you think? If she did, you’re sunk.
Drama. High dudgeon. A show honed to warm the cockles of the
President’s heart, and we’re pretty sure he’s the antichrist. Yer on the wrong
side of the bench, there, Boyo.
We’re never going to know for absolute certain if our boyo
Brett was the drinkin’ bro who scared his accuser – oops, that’s accusers –
badly enough to warp her life. It really doesn’t matter if we ever know, and it
doesn’t matter that he denies it – in fact, for this discussion, let’s assume
it wasn’t him, it was another bro. It doesn’t matter that it was very long ago
and so probably not provable one way or another. It doesn’t matter if you’re a
Republican or a Democrat or what kind of political bent you secretly hope the
next person who gets onto the Supreme
Court leans toward. What should matter is our boyo’s responses – not so very
different from the imperatives around ‘fessing up in the confession box – what matters is what he said and,
particularly, how he said it.
I was raised Catholic. Take my word for it that all good
Catholic girls and boys learn at an early age how to lie without actually
lying. Lying is a sin, so it’s wicked important to learn, early on, how to make
people think you said one thing when you actually didn’t; to make them think
you answered a direct question without actually saying anything worth listening
to at all. It’s a useful social skill, so long as it’s not abused: it can save
people’s feelings; it can save a person from telling a direct lie; it can get
you out of a tight situation. It can make the prevaricator believe that he didn’t actually tell a lie – a prevarication isn’t actually a lie, right?
Learning to prevaricate takes some practice. First, you have
to convince yourself that you aren’t actually lying. Then, you have to learn to
use the language in a way that someone who isn’t paying very careful attention, or hopes for a particular answer,
will take as an actual answer to their question. You need to be able to
determine what answer your interrogator wants to hear. You need to be able to
look like you mean what you’re saying, and look your questioner in the eye
while you say it. It’s best to say something that’s actually true – just not
the truth that’s expected, or that was asked about. If all else fails, it helps if you can put on
a very dramatic act, or throw a loud and long hissy fit while you’re answering,
or even better, instead of answering.
Our boyo is clearly an experienced prevaricator, but he
isn’t a particularly good one – he’s ‘way too obvious. But he’s a skillful
actor and his hissy fits are magisterial – which means “wicked awesome.” Magisterial may sound like a quality we
want in a Supreme Court judge, but not when we’re talking about his ability to
throw a hissy fit.
Kavanaugh prevaricated under oath – about a lot of things,
so we know he’s willing to perjure himself for personal gain, and I’m sure he’s
convinced himself it’s not really perjury
because of the circumstances. He also showed himself to be mean and a bully,
attacking individual senators who questioned him – and I’m sure he’s convinced
himself that he was pushed beyond human endurance, and he’s not really mean and a bully. He’ll probably
confess that one, which will make it ok in his soul. He proved he doesn’t
handle pressure well; and I’m sure he’s convinced himself no one could handle
that kind of pressure better, so again, it doesn’t really count. He also proved himself to be a bizarre conspiracy
theorist, a hater of Democrats, and angrily politically prejudiced, and if
those things by themselves didn’t convince you he has no business being on the
Supreme Court, then you aren’t paying attention, or you’re so desperate to get
a judge who you assume will make decisions based on your kind of conspiracy
theories, hate, and political anger, that you don’t care about the best
interests of our nation. I have no idea how our boyo will justify that part of
his presentation to himself. He carefully thought out and planned to say those
things, so all I can imagine is that he thinks those character flaws are
actually good things. You listening, Holy Mother?
Let’s agree that whether our boyo was indeed the bad dude or
not, whether he remembers it or not (lotta drinking there, me Irish lad),
whether or not he deserved it, he was under a whole lot of pressure these last
weeks. A whole lot of pressure is something we all hope to avoid, but often we
can’t, and how we react under such pressure tells us a lot about our true
character. What we hope is that under pressure – under the worst kind of
pressure – we can act with grace, calmness, compassion and kindness.
Our boyo Kavanaugh failed the test. Big time. So has our
President. Had he truly cared about our nation, about closing divides and also
about saving someone who might be a truly good man, and his family – and a good
woman, and her family - from embarrassment, stress, threats and humiliation, he
would have withdrawn the nomination when the accusations were first made. Had
he been a thinking man, a wise man, he would have realized that continuing with
this nominee could lead to nothing but pain and anger and a wider division in
our country.
Had our President been what we hope for – we wouldn’t be
where we are today. We would be better.
For the blog. I am One Witness.
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