Take a bow, Chris Hayes. You are in the lead right now for the worst response to allegations that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted a woman in the early 1980s.
“The penalty that Kavanaugh is facing here, in the wake of allegation of attempted rape, is not getting a Supreme Court seat. It’s literally the same penalty already imposed on [Merrick Garland] for the crime of … being nominated by a Democrat,” the cable host tweeted Tuesday.
Christine Blasey Ford claims Kavanaugh tried to rape her when they were both in high school.
“The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others,” she wrote in July in a letter addressed to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stair well from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help.”
It added, “Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with REDACTED, who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh’s hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me.”
Kavanaugh, whose nomination to the Supreme Court has been cast into doubt by the allegation, has categorically denied it repeatedly.
One of the key issues here is that Ford’s allegations against the judge are such that they can’t be proven or disproven. Ford recalls neither the day, nor the month, nor even for certain the year that the alleged assault took place. She doesn’t recall where it happened except that she thinks it was in Montgomery County, Md. Ford recalls only that the alleged assailant was a young Brett Kavanaugh.
The only corroborating evidence that Ford has provided are notes that her therapist wrote down in 2012. But the problem here is that the notes contradict Ford’s own version of events (the therapist wrote that there were four boys involved whereas the alleged victim maintains that there were only two).
If Kavanaugh is innocent, there’s no way for him to prove it. It’s his word against hers, and there are an awful lot of people who would like for him to be guilty. If Kavanaugh is innocent, and this is all we ever hear from Ford, the judge’s life and reputation will forever be stained with questions about whether he did the awful things of which he stands accused.
Enter MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, who seems to think that being run out of town on unproveable rape allegations is basically the same thing as when the GOP blocked former President Barack Obama’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
Several social media users noted Tuesday afternoon that, no, being drummed out of polite society on rape charges that may or may not be true is not the same thing as when Republicans used parliamentary tricks to block a Supreme Court nominee.
Hayes tweeted an eventual follow-up, “And as many have pointed out the cost here is more than the job, but the reputational cost, which is real and considerable.”
Oh, right. That.
