Far be it for me, someone who spent the better part of his life as your typical secular agnostic, to talk about God. But that was what I have been thinking about in the hours since I spent my day, as many of us did, watching the Kavanaugh confirmation hearing.
I guess it first hit me when Judge Kavanaugh, in the midst of his powerful and heartfelt opening statement, one few expected him to make, choked up, fighting back tears as he spoke of his ten-year old daughter’s desire to pray for Dr. Ford. I had trouble choking back my own and it dawned on me I was watching an event that I thought was political being transformed into a spiritual one.
Nothing was as expected. A real rape had taken place but it wasn’t the one everyone was talking about. It was simultaneously a rape of Judge Kavanaugh, his family, and the American people themselves. The collateral damage was Dr. Ford, her friends, and her family. And the perpetrator was the Democratic Party, principally their Judiciary Committee members, their ranking member, and the minority leader.
It also dawned me that whatever the pundits were saying had become irrelevant. The American people were watching now — they would make up their own minds — and… I thought I’d never say this… God was looking down on the proceedings.
For the first time I had a visceral understanding of what Dennis Prager meant when he said God was involved in the American founding. (I’ve been reading his book on Exodus.)
And then Lindsey Graham said what so many of us were feeling, making the most magnificent, impassioned speech I have heard in Congress. He was so good, in fact, that for a moment the Democrats seemed chastened. But it didn’t last long and pretty soon that ranking member, Ms. Feinstein, was up to her old tricks, doddering as she may have become, reading with her head down a litany of recent accusations against Kavanaugh so ludicrous even the New York Times wouldn’t print them.
But, for all intents and purposes, the hearings were already over. Louisiana Senator Kennedy formally ended them, appropriately enough, by asking Judge Kavanaugh to swear to God that he never sexually assaulted anyone. He so swore.
But I can’t let go of my religious theme so quickly. I am Jewish and trying, as many do as they grow older, to find consolation in my faith. I make no claims for any knowledge or depth in this. I am very much a neophyte. But nevertheless, I was offended, even appalled, by the activities of my co-religionists Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal on the committee. They have shamed our faith by disobeying one of the keystones of the Ten Commandments, the Ninth: “Thou shall not bear false witness.” (Exodus 20:13)
I suspect Feinstein even knows this deep down. But I’m still not sure I want to know about what role she did or didn’t play in hiding or revealing Dr. Ford’s accusations. It’s all too nauseating and depressing. Whatever it is, it doesn’t look good and does no service to women or anybody else, least of all Dr. Ford.
That Richard Blumenthal — a man who lied about his military service – would dare begin interrogating Judge Kavanaugh by asking him to translate the watchword of Roman law Falsus in uno falsus in omnibus (False in one thing, false in everything) was such eye-rolling arrogance and self-delusion it made you wonder what they have in the drinking water in the state of Connecticut.
But never mind. All is well. As I finished typing this, I reached into my wallet, curious to see if the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” were still printed on our money. (Frankly, I hadn’t bothered to look closely for a long time.) Thankfully, they were.