October 8, 2018--Susan Collins: My Summer Senator

For half the year in Maine, Susan Collins is one of my senators.

A self-described "moderate Republican" I have yet to see much moderation in her voting record. 

On occasion she sounds moderate like when two years ago she struggled publicly about how to vote on a bill to repeal Obamacare (she eventually voted to eliminate it) and then last week when she seemed to agonize about how to vote when the roll was called to confirm Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Again, she voted the Republican Party line. In fact, she cast the decisive 50th vote. No one up here was surprised by her seeming to have an open mind but when it came to voting acted as one of the most loyal, most robotic of Republicans.

She is so craven that on Friday she took the lead role in dooming the opposition to Kavanaugh.

With a new outfit and dye-job (he hair no longer looking like roadkill), with three female Republican senators like props seated behind her (Deb Fischer [NE], Shelly Capito [WV], and Cindy-Hyde Smith [MS]), with Lisa Murkowski conspicuously absent (she was too busy writing her own profile in courage), Collins spoke for 45 minutes with seeming feeling about the testimony offered by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. She could feel her pain, she claimed without feeling, but since she said there was no corroboration she was going to vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

Not a word did she offer about the deranged conspiracy-laced statement and testimony Kavanaugh offered last Thursday. Not a word about his judicial temperament, mental stability, or his many contemporary under-oath lies. All that mattered for Collins was a lack of clear evidence about something he may or may not have done 36 years ago.

What a disgraceful show she participated in. Perhaps most disgraceful was her willingness, as a woman, with three female coconspirators backing her up, to ignore the testimony of an impressive, deeply wounded woman.

At least no one wore pink.

I am always loath to make comparisons between events in the United States and Nazi Germany, but I cannot shake the feeling that Collins and her colleague female senators acted like concentration camp kapos. Like prisoners who were assigned by the SS guards to supervise forced labor of fellow prisoners or carry out administrative tasks. For this they were given special privileges. Like blankets and food. 

Collins, who has been in the Senate for 21 too-long years comes cheap. For her staged peregrinations and eventual "capitulation" she chairs just one subcommittee--on aging. How appropriate. 

But for the bit of her soul she sold Saturday, perhaps the majority leader, the already soulless Mitch McConnell (who considers the Kavanaugh confirmation his "proudest moment"), will name her to a real committee, the foreign relations committee, for example which would allow her to junket around the world at our expense.

Mark it on your calendar--she's up for reelection in 2020.

September 20, 2018--Show Up!

Changing votes among Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee is no longer the issue.

All GOP minds are shut tight. Without hearing one word from Dr.  Blassey Ford all are ready this minute to vote to send Brett Kavanaugh on to the full Senate where the weak-kneed and well-named Jeff Flake, the equally well-named Bob Corker, and the ever self-justifying Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins now have all the rationals they need to fall familiarly in line. All four can now feel virtuous. They will even be able to boast that they don't sound as clueless as Senator Orrin Hatch who called Dr. Ford "mixed up."

Even a few Red State Democratic senators can now justify that they too can vote for Kavanaugh and avoid rightwing retribution this November as they precariously seek reelection. 

And all things being equal (which they are not) holding her appearance before the committee hostage in the hope that the FBI will undertake an investigation is appropriate but in the real political world is a fantasy,  Such an investigation would have to be ordered by Trump and he's the last person to have any interest in seeing more accusations and facts surface. He personally knows how that feels and what that can yield. Just say "Stormy Daniels." 

Then no one in the Senate or political class cares much about Kavanaugh's candidacy. At least six Democrats on the committee have their eyes on another prize--the presidency--and see the committee's hearings to be an opportunity to come off looking nominatable and presidential. Thus far they have been so inept at this as to reduce the little stature they have. Even non-committee White House aspirants (Elizabeth Warren comes to mind) can't speak even one sentence about this without making fools of themselves. They are that desperate for power.

Sadly, it does not matter any longer if Dr. Ford is telling the truth. The committee is not a grand jury, it is not a court of law, it is a place where the essence of truth can become manifest. Hers and also, let's be fair, his.

What then is at issue? What's left is for Dr. Ford to tell her story directly to Congress and, more important, beyond that, to the American people. 

Especially to female Americans who have been fighting for decades to have their voices heard.

Forgive me, but thus far Dr. Ford has offered a tease. To tell her story to 100 million is certainly frightening, particularly while being savaged on social media, including having her life threatened. There are all those Trump crazies out there who are not to be ignored. 

But if Professor Ford is changing her mind about testifying (as of this morning she may or may not be), she should have been certain she was willing to show up to testify before beginning to squeeze out her story to her local congresswoman and the Washington Post.

If she refuses to show up on Monday to tell her story the real losers will be women who find her story all too credible and feel from their own life experience that they have been shused and held silent for too long.

The negative example of backing out, not showing up, will be devastating. And will provide cover for the worst kind of gender stereotyping. 

So please pack a bag and head for Washington. It's big person time.