“This week was a stress test for the American order. This is a triumph of common sense.”
Historian Jon Meacham, referring to Sen. Flake’s calling for further investigation of Brett Kavanaugh
For the first time in a long time, perhaps the dam of oppositional politics has sprung a leak and maybe, just maybe, is on the way to finally being broken.
For the first time in a long time, while the entire country watched, we’ve seen a range of filtered and unfiltered behaviors covering the spectrum of human response and, at the end, a remarkable Congressional profile in courage that came about as a result of respect and friendship and the power of two women holding open an elevator door.
The Judiciary Committee Hearing on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court had been the scene of the same tribal politics that’s been driving us further and further apart from each other. We watched, on Thursday, as Dr. Ford and Judge Kavanaugh presented, not just their story, but themselves. By the end of the day, we knew these people – seen to some extent through our own prism perhaps, but seen nonetheless.
We heard behaviors recounted that made us gasp in horror. We saw behaviors from senators we thought we knew, but under stress and anger, a whole new side erupted into foaming accusations that could only push colleagues further away. We saw behaviors that were confrontational, petulant, entitled and self-serving; mean and partisan in the extreme.
Anyone with an ounce of reasonable objectivity was left wanting more information. As Sen. Jeff Flake from Arizona said in the afternoon, regardless of which side you came down on, some doubt would always remain.
Repeatedly, the need for further investigation was expressed. Even if Kavanaugh were to be confirmed, there would always be a question about his role in the alleged assault and the credible accusations of at least two other women. Time and again, Kavanaugh and the Republicans on the committee chose not to ask for an FBI investigation that could, at a minimum, confirm his testimony and at a maximum, clear his name.
The one Republican on the committee who was most likely to vote against confirmation was Flake. Then he announced he would.
But then something remarkable happened. Two women, Ana Maria Archila and Maria Gallagher, confronted Flake as he got on a Senate elevator. They held the door open. They told him they had been sexually assaulted. They demanded that he look at them as they yelled their anger at having been ignored when they came forward and that this must not happen now. They intervened in his life. They made him attend to their pain.
Flake returned to the hearing as members summed up their arguments for or against confirmation. The camera stayed on Flake as his good friend, Sen. Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, gave his summary. He ended by repeating yet again the need for further investigation by the FBI. And then Flake stood and asked senators Klobuchar and Coons to join him in conference away from the committee. The reader knows the rest.
On Friday, we saw four people change the trajectory of history. The two women who stopped that elevator with reminders that pleas for help and acknowledgement of assault must not be ignored; a Democratic senator presenting logical, non-partisan arguments and one Republican senator who said it was time to pause, to investigate further before moving on the nomination.
Coons and the two women were the motivators but it was Flake whose actions will be responsible for assuring a lifetime appointment will not be given to someone who, depending on the information provided by the FBI, may be found to be ethically and judicially unqualified.
Flake was a profile in courage on Friday. His late colleague, U.S. Sen. John McCain, would be proud. As should we all.
One person, any one person, can change history. In the long run, that may be the longest lasting and most important lesson of all.
Marsha Shearer is a Villager and a frequent contributor to Villages-News.com.