The Country is Very Sick---of Politics

By Hank Silverberg

An interesting experience this past Saturday has led me to the conclusion that many people in the United States are suffering from politics-itis, a new unclassified disease that makes people run from anything political. You may have experienced this as well at the dinner table with friends or at your workplace. 

I had a chance to sell some of my books at the Fredericksburg Book Festival. There were many genres of  books at the gathering, from Science Fiction to children’s stories, to graphic novels.  I was selling three of my books, two with political themes and one about growing up in the suburbs in the 60’s. 

My table had two big posters of my latest book, “The Campaign,” attached to it. Early in the day as people walked by each booth, they seemed to turn away from my table as soon as they read the posters.  

About an hour into the Festival I started with a new greeting letting people know the political books were fiction. That's when people began to stop and chat.

Almost all of them told me they don’t want to talk (or read) about politics anymore, and when they thought the book was about the 2016 campaign, it turned them off.

 The “It’s Fiction” greeting worked as the day went on, and lots of people stopped to at least look at my books.  I quickly sold my last five copies of “If the Log Rolls Over,” the non political book. But “The Campaign,” about fictional politics, and “News of War,” about fictional journalists, were a harder sell.   

I bring this up this week because of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to be a Supreme Court Justice. 

Millions of people watched those hearings. It is almost impossible to imagine anyone doing so without feeling some compassion for Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. Calls to the National Sexual Assault Hotline (800-656-4673) spiked 201%  (not a typo) during and after the hearing on Thursday. 

https://www.rainn.org/about-national-sexual-assault-telephone-hotline

 Many sexual assault victims called into CSPAN during breaks in the hearing. 

	TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire)
9/27/18, 12:59 PM 76-year-old CSPAN caller recalls being molested in second grade: "I thought I was over it, until I heard what happened to someone else." pic.twitter.com/l6BnQioJD3

 There is no question in my mind that Dr. Ford was sexually assaulted at some point in her life.  

If you watched the hearings and weren’t angry at Judge Kavanaugh, then you weren’t paying close attention. 

I will set aside the vivid details of the sexual assault charge here because there is another issue that makes me worry more about Judge Kavanaugh on the high court.

As he defended himself at the hearing, the Judge came unhinged. He yelled, he cried, and even more worrisome, he launched a highly charged partisan attack on Democrats on the Committee. He even said the accusations against him were “revenge by the Clintons.” His language, tone and general demeanor are not the characteristics we would want in a Supreme Court Justice. I am not the only one who picked up on this. 

	Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw)
9/27/18, 7:25 PM The rage Judge Kavanaugh displayed, apart from its bearing on his judicial temperament, exposed the dark side of a guy who seemed fully capable of getting sloshed, doing exactly what Dr. Ford described, laughing as he did it, and barely remembering the next day what he had done.

Kavanaugh’s attack on the Clintons in particular, reminded those of us old enough to remember, that the Judge worked for Special Counsel Ken Starr during the Clinton years, on the Whitewater Investigation. Kavanaugh was among those in Washington who were promoting the Vince Foster conspiracy theory. Foster, a close Clinton friend, committed suicide in a D.C. park, but conspiracy theorists claimed for years that the death was murder, and that somehow the Clintons were involved. Like most conspiracy theories, it was hokum. When I heard Kavanaugh blame the Clinton’s in his testimony, an alarm went off in my brain.  It put the sexual assault allegations aside for a minute and made me focus more on Kavanaugh's approach to his defense.   

First and foremost, Supreme Court Justices are expected to base their decisions on the U.S. Constitution and previous rulings by the Court. They are supposed to give both sides in a legal case an equal chance to make their argument. And then, based on what they have heard in court arguments, read in court briefs and looked up in court precedents, make a rational decision. Judge Kavanaugh, though he has served on the D-C Court of Appeals, did not seem like he fit that mold. Instead of taking the high road in his defense, he took the lowest road possible, attacking all the Democrats in the last 30 years, sounding, dare I say it, almost paranoid. And I may add, sounding very much like the man in the White House who appointed him.

President Trump has to face the voters again in 2020,but a seat on the high court is for life. Once you are there, you are there until you die, or become too sick to sit on the bench.    

I am not sure what is going to happen with this nomination. Brett Kavanaugh could very well end up on the U.S. Supreme Court ruling on issues that have a major impact on our lives, like the First Amendment, abortion, same-sex marriage, pollution control, campaign contributions, gun control, banking regulations, and many more. Every time I see his name involved in any decision or vote, I am not going to think about a drunken 17- year-old prep-school boy. I am going to think about the Appeals Court Judge who became unhinged when confronted with allegations against him. And that should scare us all.

(Your comments and suggestions are welcome--see below) 

(If you would like to buy a copy of "The Campaign" or "News of War" at reduced Book Festival prices and my signature, send me an email at HankSilverberg@gmail.com) 

"The Campaign" also available

at Amazon.com, BN.com or

HankSilverbergbooks.com 

"News of War" only 

through email: HankSilverberg@gmail.com