In the Extremely Unlikely Event of Our Own Nomination, I Confess…
Four dozen years ago, I found myself in my first year of parochial school.
My parents, reeling from a decision by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Merhige ordering the consolidation of Henrico and Chesterfield County public schools with the City of Richmond public schools, which would have entailed cross-town busing (a ruling, by the way, which was later overturned in the U.S. Supreme Court), yanked me out of my suburban public school and thrust me into a nearby Catholic school. It was a mixed year for yours truly.
On the one hand, the Baltimore Orioles won their second World Series, and the Baltimore Colts were on their way to a Super Bowl victory the following January. Not bad for a dyed-in-the-wool Baltimore fan, to say the least.
On the other hand, I found out the very meaning of the word “nemesis.” Another kid just like me- too much like me I should say- became my “mortal enemy,” as it were. We were like oil and water and we took to fisticuffs more often than I can remember- so often that for the next two years, the school made sure we were never in the same class, again. That was 1970, and I was in the sixth grade.
A half dozen years later, after walking a classmate to her class which was at the opposite end of a large high school in Henrico County, the bell rang and I took off at breakneck speed, trying to avoid being late for my own class. Wearing blue jeans and stirrup-strap boots, I ran as fast as I could towards the opposite end of the school building. Rounding a blind corner from the other direction strode a diminutive history teacher bearing an armful of books when we collided, with books and papers flying everywhere.
To the teacher’s credit, she kept the school principal from ending my young life, as he was bound and determined to do until, thankfully, she explained the full story. Accident though it was, I was still rewarded for my efforts with two weeks after-school detention. On retrospect, I suppose the punishment was just, as it is indeed unsafe for a six-foot, 200-pound young man to be running at full-speed down the corridor of a school building.
I offer these confessions in the extremely unlikely event that I am someday nominated to some position of import. After all, being an admitted conservative who tends to vote Republican, if a partisan rival were to learn of these occurrences I would be thus accused of having a “violent past,” with regards to my dealings with a fellow sixth-grade nemesis, or recklessly knocking down a helpless teacher in my senior year of high school. If, on the other hand, I was a liberal Democrat, then that would certainly be a different story, and who knows the heights to which I might have otherwise attained?
So, it is with these things in mind that I read the news of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh being accused of sexual improprieties when he was in prep school, three dozen years ago. Having gone through (count ‘em) six FBI investigations during his career, and two Senate Judiciary hearings (one for his current position as a circuit judge, and the other for his nomination to the Supreme Court), out of the blue an old classmate has now leveled accusations that the once and future judge pressed his advantage upon her at a house party, the kind of house party all of us who attended high school once, well, attended.
Never mind the fact that none of his other classmates have ever indicated that such an assault was within the normal behavior of a young Brett Kavanaugh, and at least one of his classmates who claimed to be at the party, said emphatically that the occurrence did not take place. For his own part, Kavanaugh himself has vehemently denied that such an assault ever took place upon his accuser, or any other woman, for that matter.
For her own part, his accuser is a university professor, one Christine Blasey Ford, with a doctorate in psychology, who has authored several papers and, presumably, a dissertation in order to earn her doctorate. That aside, she apparently required the assistance of Stanford law students to pen a letter to Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) recounting her sudden recall of the ‘til-then-repressed episode during her own marriage counseling session in 2012. Feinstein, who received the letter in early July of this year, chose to keep the letter to herself until the very week Kavanaugh’s nomination was to be put to the committee vote, when she decided to release it to the FBI.
So now it seems that the road towards Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court has met a snag, thanks to the shenanigans of Democrat senators who promised to do everything they can to prevent President Donald Trump from making a second Supreme Court appointment. Kavanaugh managed to survive the grueling hearings despite desperate efforts by Democrats to trip him up during the three-day inquisition of September 5-7, and despite the coordinated protests of partisan spectators in attendance…but that wasn’t quite good enough for Feinstein and her Democrat colleagues, who will stop at nothing to trip up Kavanaugh and, by proxy, the President they hate.
A fellow Trump-hater on the Republican caucus of that same Senate Judiciary Committee, one Jeff Flake (R-AZ) who would love nothing more that to throw one last dagger into the back of the President he hates prior to his retirement at year’s end, has now indicated that he will not vote to confirm Kavanaugh until he hears from the judge’s accuser, and similar sentiments have been heard from another on-the-way-out Republican Trump-hater, Bob Corker (R-TN), who desires to get his last digs in, as well.
It’s not the first time Democrats have pulled an eleventh-hour stunt on a Republican-appointed Supreme Court nominee. Lest we forget the “high-tech” lynching on Clarence Thomas, back in 1991, courtesy of accusations by Anita Hill that Thomas made inappropriate sexual comments toward her while she was in his employ, it seems to be a standard play when Democrats find themselves in an unenviable position of not being able to make their own nominations to the nation’s high court. Then, of course, was the disgusting character assassination of Robert Bork at the hands of the late Ted Kennedy (D-MA) during the Reagan administration, which coined the verb “bork,” which has come to mean a last-minute attempt to sabotage a nominee through specious and devious means. Judge Bork didn’t survive the assault on his character, the way Justice Thomas was able to do, but going back to a nominee’s high school years- three dozen years past no less, just to find some dirt that might stick is a new low, even for the “low-lifes” who now exist in the United States Senate. Whether he is ultimately seated to be an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court is now beside the point. His reputation has been trashed by opponents to his nomination for the mere fact that they couldn’t find any other way to stop him in his tracks- just to stick it to the President who nominated him in the first place…
…in a word, disgusting.
So, as I said, in the extremely unlikely event that yours truly is ever nominated to anything of consequence, let my confession be on the record for all to see.
-Drew Nickell, 17 September 2018
© 2018 by Drew Nickell, all rights reserved.
author of “Bending Your Ear- a Collection of Essays on the Issues of Our Times”
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