Senators must not make the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing about themselves, but they already seem to be doing just that.
When Brett Kavanaugh appeared before the Senate in the first round of confirmation hearings, senators from both sides of the aisle took the opportunity of the televised circus to engage in political grandstanding. That behavior was inappropriate then and remains inappropriate.
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh regarding allegations of sexual assault when they were both in high school. Those are serious allegations and must be treated as such.
Political grandstanding and refusing to focus on the only question that matters, did Brett Kavanaugh commit sexual assault, not only makes finding any kind of fact nearly impossible but also melds analyzing evidence with politics.
That detracts from the integrity of the confirmation process and denies Americans a clear, fair and impartial hearing to determine who will sit on the nation’s highest court to determine who sits on the nation’s highest court.
Already, senators are off to a bad start. Opening statements from both Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, were less about the facts of the specific allegations brought by Ford than about their own stance on the process – and the opportunity to fire rhetorical shots at each other.
For her part, Feinstein tried to make the hearing about society’s broad treatment of women saying, “How women are treated in the U.S. with this kind of concern is really wanting a lot of reform.”
Grassley took the opportunity to rail against partisanship and criticize how this hearing came about without noting the seriousness of the allegations.
Both statements reek of partisanship and set the hearing up to be yet another Senate circus, proving, once again, that senators can’t seem to help themselves whenever there are television cameras in the room.
That’s too bad since both Kavanaugh and Ford deserve an impartial hearing and, most importantly, the American people need a process run by lawmakers who are more committed to doing the right thing for the country than taking political pot shots at each other.
