Expect disaster

If I still drew pictures, I'd devote this day to creating another Dr. Seuss knock-off. The lines almost write themselves:

Would you spike her drink with 'ludes?
Would you form a train of dudes?
Would you, could you, in a boat?
Would you, could you, laugh and gloat?

Still working on a title. I've considered Three Rapes and Hamm's, but an east coast frat boy wouldn't drink that brand of brewski. (Well, maybe late in the evening.)

And now, let's switch into a more serious mode. Since last we met, there have been two further accusers against Brett Kavanaugh, both anonymous. That brings us up to five claims of sexual abuse.

Regarding accuser #3: Michael Avenatti has pointedly noted that Julie Swetnick has invited an FBI investigation, even though she knows full well that lying to the Bureau carries a substantial risk. That stance attests to her credibility.

Nevertheless, my nose is twitching again. Something's not right. One of these accusers is not what she seems.

We may draw a comparison to the allegations against Bill Cosby -- allegations which led to trial and prison. Many people still don't know that Cosby's notoriety attracted at least one provably false accusation, while another was probably false. Yes, Cosby did drug women -- but it is also true Janice Dickenson published bogus claims, as she eventually admitted in court; there is also the case of Andrea Constand.

Certain feminists pretend that women like Dickenson and Constand do not exist. The truth is that males and females are equally likely to deceive, especially when they spy dollar signs in the distance. (Frankly, I'm sick and tired of being accused of sexism simply because I maintain that both genders are fallen and fallible.)

With that example in mind, let's return to Kavanaugh.

By this point, nearly all reasonable people will concede that, as a young man, he abused both alcohol and the opposite sex. His ludicrous Fox News interview, as well as his perjured testimony on non-sexual matters, prove that the man is a damnable liar.

A dark past may explain why Trump picked him and remains loyal to him. A man who committed a sex crime in Maryland -- a state with no statute of limitations -- is blackmailable. The Trumpists definitely want a blackmailable Justice on the Court.

Yet I also think it highly likely that one of the five accusers against Kavanaugh is a deceiver.

I have returned to my original theory of a "McAlpine gambit," a term defined in a number of preceding posts. As briefly as possible: Lord Alistair McAlpine, friend to Margaret Thatcher, wrote a book about the use of Machiavellian tactics in the modern world. This book recommends that a person or firm beset by scandal should concoct a fake accusation which, when revealed as a fake, would discredit the genuine accusers.

Let us posit that one Kavanaugh accuser is a ringer. Which one? If Hercule Poirot were here, he would study the suspects while firing up the little grey cells.

I don't think that the ringer is Ramirez. If her story were a concoction, the details would have been both more plentiful and more concrete. So far, Swetnick has made a good impression on me. The virulence of the right-wing attacks against her (here's an example) -- along with the Committee's refusal to hear her testimony -- demonstrate that the right genuinely fears her.

We haven't enough information yet to make a judgment about the two unnamed accusers. But if one of them were a right-wing plant, her name would probably be familiar to us by this point. A false accusation serves no purpose if it is not publicized.

And so we come back to Christine Blasey Ford.

In the past, I suggested that she might be the bogus victim -- the false voice who drowns out the genuine. Although I later retracted and regretted this theory, perhaps my first instincts were correct.

Consider: Trump, who usually attacks women mercilessly, has (with the exception of one tweet) treated her with respect and has asked for her to receive a fair hearing. In response, congressional Republicans have arranged for her to testify. They have treated her with far more generosity than they have shown toward Ramirez or Swetnick.

Whenever a Republican acts in a seemingly reasonable fashion, be wary. Why are they so anxious to put the entire controversy on Ford's shoulders? Why do they allow only her to speak? Why the rush to vote the day after she gives her testimony? Why have they asked a prosecutor from Arizona to grill her?

And when Trump -- Trump! -- offers a statement like this, how can I not go into paranoia mode?

Now we have this from the National Review...

The Senate Judiciary Committee is talking to two men who think they may have been the one who assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, one of the women accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.

However, the unidentified men in question told the committee in separate interviews that they, not Kavanaugh, were the one who had the encounter with Ford in the summer of 1982 that is the basis of her claim, the committee wrote in a timeline of the investigation.

Here is the timeline, which contains this paragraph:

Committee staff have a second interview with a man who believes he, not Judge Kavanaugh, had the encounter with Dr. Ford in the summer of 1982 that is the basis of her allegation. He described his recollection of their interaction in some detail.

Also see here. Everyone laughed at the "mistaken identity" theory when it was first offered, but now we have an alleged confession. That, as they used to say, is a horse of a different color.

We should not close our eyes to the possibility that both Ford and the man who made this confession are party to a larger conspiracy. If Ford breaks down and admits that she might have been mistaken, we will be inundated with "scholarly" stories about the fallibility of memory -- and when that happens, the other accusers will be tossed aside like refuse.

Some of you may recall when the term "false memory syndrome" entered our language, back in the 1990s. Even though the field of psychology does not recognize the existence of this syndrome (it's not listed in the DSM-pick-a-number), and even though the Scientific American has decried the misuse of the word "syndrome," the FMS mythos has been of great aid to actual pedophiles. The term has even proved useful to Holocaust deniers.

Trump himself might benefit if this culture goes through a phase in which all eyewitness testimony is discredited.

My position may strike some of you as contradictory. For a long time now, I've argued against the "Me Too" axiom that we must grant immediate credibility to all who make accusations involving sexual abuse. Some accusers lie for pecuniary or ideological motives, some are mistaken, and some are simply not rational people. God help this nation if we collectively decide that accusation equals proof. But neither do I believe in sweeping aside all accusations. The mindless application of phrases like "false memory syndrome" and other examples of pseudoscientific jargon can only lead to havoc.

Determining who is and is not telling the truth is a damnably frustrating business. Always has been; always will be. Each case must be assessed individually. If my darkest suspicions are correct -- if Dr. Blasey Ford turns out to be a false accuser -- the other claimants will not necessarily be discredited.

By the end of this day, we should know. I am still predicting that Kavanaugh will join the Supreme Court. I hope that I am wrong.