Kellyanne Conway Shameless Again, Kavanaugh 'Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy' Edition
Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court is in great peril. His first accuser of sexual assault, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, is scheduled to testify before the Senate on Thursday, and as you might've noticed from the previous sentence, she's now officially the first accuser because Ronan Farrow and Jane Mayer dropped a Gap Band-sized bomb on Sunday in a New Yorker piece that identified the inevitable second accuser, Deborah Ramirez.
Kavanaugh's supporters, eager to defend the sanctity of life and overturn Roe v. Wade, have fiercely defended the judge by downplaying sexual assault and sleazily framing some random guy for the supposed "no big deal" boys-will-be-boys antics. Kavanaugh himself hasn't sat around idly and let other people use Zillow to find his one-armed man. Sunday, he revealed his "smoking gun" of 1982 calendars that he meticulously kept as a 17-year-old and that would clearly show he had no scheduled rapes during that summer. Really? That's his "alibi"? When the Fresh Prince rapped in the 1991 hit "Summertime" that he was "invited to a barbecue that's startin' at four," I presumed he hadn't jotted it down in his day planner. Teenagers have excellent memories for everything but chores and reading "David Copperfield." Parties with underage drinking a go-go are easier to recall than their own mothers' birthdays.
You know Kavanaugh is in trouble when the White House has no recourse but to release Kellyanne Conway to confound us with a dazzling array of lies and Bizarro World logic. Conway appeared on "CBS This Morning" this morning, on CBS, and, true to form, spoke words that made no sense in relation to each other.
"I know there's pent-up demand for women to get their day, women who have been sexually harassed and sexually assaulted, and I personally am very aggrieved for all of them. But are we going to put decades of pent-up demand for women to feel whole on one man's shoulders? What exactly is the standard for ruining one man's life based on decades of allegations that have nothing to do with him?"
Uh, the accusations do have something to do with Kavanaugh. That's the whole point. I'm also tired of conservatives arguing that not making Kavanaugh one of nine current Supreme Court Justices and only 113 total in US history is "ruining" his life. I will probably never play the lead in "Doctor Who" with Vanessa Kirby as my companion. I'm getting over it and Kavanaugh can get over the thwarting of his own ambitions. He still gets to keep his current job, his house, even his baseball tickets. This isn't like what happened to Anne Boleyn. That lady got jacked up. Lots of people don't wind up on the Supreme Court. I swear it's like only Haley Joel Osment can see or remember Merrick Garland.
"This may be the first time we've heard allegations against someone as a teenager who did not prey upon women thusly as he became powerful."
Yeah, that statement won't come back to bite them. Fortunately, Conway is a perpetual motion machine of lies so she'll just deny she ever made such a bold claim in the three or so days it'll take to be proven false. Earlier in the interview, shortly before Gayle King's head exploded, Conway said something crazy and repulsive that I believe was totally deliberate.
"And I thought [Kavanaugh's] comment last night about the second so-called accuser is incredibly instructive. He's now calling this a smear campaign. Indeed this is starting to feel like a vast left-wing conspiracy."
Conway is riffing on Hillary Clinton's famous comments during a 1998 "Today Show" interview with Matt Lauer (the creep with the secret rape lock on his office door -- God, men are trash). This is an interesting tactic because conservatives still believe Bill Clinton was guilty of all the crimes and won't stop talking about it even now (I'm sure it came up again on "Morning Joe"). Also Brett Kavanaugh gleefully worked with not-so special prosecutor Ken Starr and was literally part of the "vast right-wing conspiracy" digging up dirt on Clinton for release in "Penthouse Forum." Karma is a guy who exposes his penis to women (allegedly).
Last week, Wonkette detailed the gross, humiliating questions about Clinton's sex life that Kavanaugh offered Starr when not investigating Vince Foster's "suicide" or charges that a 22-year-old Hillary helped fake the moon landing. It's interesting to me how aggressive and shamelessly structured to inflict maximum political damage they are.
If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions in the Oval Office area, you used your fingers to stimulate her vagina and bring her to orgasm, would she be lying?
If Monica Lewinsky says that you ejaculated into her mouth on two occasions in the Oval Office area, would she be lying?
If Monica Lewinsky says that on several occasions you had her give [you] oral sex, made her stop, and then ejaculated into the sink in the bathroom of the Oval Office, would she be lying?
If Monica Lewinsky says that you masturbated into a trashcan in your secretary's office, would she [be] lying?
Yeah, Mr. President, is the young woman whom we forced to come forward after threatening to prosecute her own mother lying about the sick stuff you did with her that we're totally envious of? This is hardcore lawyering to prevent Clinton from claiming he "doesn't recall" or to play dumb as Kavanaugh himself did when facing the concentrated awesomeness of Kamala Harris.
We alsodetailed Kavanaugh's role in leaking to reporters, for Ken Starr, Hillary's supposed affair with Vince Foster. Kavanaugh insisted on investigating four years later what all previous investigations had said was Foster's simple suicide -- because it was lighting up the Mellon Scaifes' network of looney Arkansas blogs. So, when Hillary Clinton talked about the vast rightwing conspiracy, Brett Kavanaugh was literally whom she meant.
Conway's allusion to the Clintons is a dog whistle to wavering conservatives, who still resent the idea that Bill survived impeachment. Erick Erickson's revolting attacks on Dr. Blasey and impassioned defense of a fellow entitled white guy are all rooted in the same conservative pathology, which demands that liberals are denied any perceived "victory." They never cared about Lewinksy and they don't care about Dr. Blasey or Ms. Ramirez or whichever victim has emerged by the time this post goes up.
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Stephen Robinson is a writer and social kibbitzer based in Portland, Oregon. He writes make believe for Cafe Nordo, an immersive theatre space in Seattle. Once, he wrote a novel called “Mahogany Slade,” which you should read or at least buy. He's also on the board of the Portland Playhouse theatre. His son describes him as a “play typer guy."
