The Whole World Was Watching the Game Between Team Ford and Team Kavanaugh

Today I watched it all. The entire proceedings. From the very opening statement of Dr Christine Blasey Ford to the last question tossed to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, I was riveted to the television during today’s hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee. So was the rest of the country.

This was a moment for the country – this hearing. And the hearing was not just about whether Kavanaugh sexually assaulted Dr Ford, but it was about his credibility and whether he’s fit to serve on the Supreme Court.

And here I wish to briefly share some comments and observations, but hesitate. How could I possibly add to the commentary about this hearing when there are so many other pundits better-positioned with more fruitful resources to rely upon. What could I possibly add?

Today has been an emotional one for people who are sympathetic to Blasey Ford. Many women were heartbroken listening to her testimony. And so were many men. But as this is a huge teaching moment, especially for men – as women were/ are already aware – I wanted to write something different. So, I thought – let me make this article appealing to men. Let me describe what happened as if it was a football game.

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It was the game of the decade, with Team Ford squaring off with Team Kavanaugh in the confines of Washington DC’s smallest hearing field. Much of the country tuned in – as the stakes were high.

The game started with Team Kavanaugh’s running back Chuck Grassley opening with a fast fake by to the left by calling for civility but then blowing past the Ford defense with an immediate partisan turn to the right. But defense leader Dianne Feinstein blocked the next play and the ball had to be turned over.

As soon as Team Ford’s offense took the field, the crowd was awed with how quarterback Christine’s quiet genuineness and deliberateness allowed her to make play after play, moving the ball quickly down the field. Her unswerving honest plays charged the nation with emotion, as the wounded hero dominated the first half.

The Kavanaugh defense – led by a rookie from Arizona, Rachel Mitchell, who was hired in an unprecedented effort for appearances sake only – tried to play traditional ball – as she was coached. But the defense couldn’t focus and simply crumbled. It was embarrassing. Every attempt to gain the field only made Team Ford stronger.

Quarterback Ford made pass after pass, scoring point after point; she remembered the stairwell of the suburban house where the infamous party took place; she remembered the bedroom, the door being locked, the music being turned up. She remembered Kavanaugh and his buddy Mark Judge drunker than skunks. She remembered looking into Mark Judge’s eyes as Kavanaugh ground his body into hers, trying to remove or move her clothing. She thought Judge might help her – but he didn’t

The game was getting emotional. The comeback for this wounded hero from Palo Alto was electrifying as it was terrifying. Her family had been threatened; they had to move; she had to hire security to guard herself and her family. She remembered Kavanaugh placing his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream. She feared she was about to be raped. She thought she might be accidentally killed. She was finally able to get off the bed and she ran into the bathroom, locking the door. She continued to hear their laughter.

This was a very credible quarterback. Incredibly incredible. Point after point was being racked up. Ford handed off to Leahy who passed through the Kavanaugh line with his calls for an FBI investigation. On another play, Leahy brought out from quarterback Ford her strongest memory of the incident – it was the laughter of the boys as they made the assault.

On another play, running back Dick Durbin took the ball and asked the quarterback how certain she was it was Kavanaugh; she was one hundred per cent sure was the response. Durbin was shining. In another play, he called out for Kavanaugh buddy and witness Mark Judge to be subpeoned. Yet, it fell on deaf ears over on the defensive line, as had numerous letters to Team Kavanaugh from Team Ford requesting an investigation by the FBI referees.

But the defensive leader Mitchell continued in her efforts to pick out weak spots within Ford’s position. How could she fly around to vacation spots if she had a fear of flying? Fear of flying had been a reason for a day delay. Who was going to pay for the lie-detector test? As if that mattered. But nothing shook quarterback Ford. Her responses after every defensive probe was to successfully hand off to another running back.

Like when back Blumenthal received the hand-off, he fired up the team by showing Ford was inspiring and teaching the country how to play the game. At one point he demonstrated with finesse how the failure of Team Kavanaugh and their coach Trump to ask for an FBI investigation was tantamount to a cover-up. The last play of the half, Mazi Hirona from Hawaii, led her side in one last display of high the stakes were by describing the game as “this is a moment for our country.”

The first half ended 12 – zip, Ford over Kavanaugh.

When Team Kavanaugh players filed off the field, they were sullen; not speaking. Then they went to their locker room, where teammate Lindsay Graham must have fired them up with his ‘cry for war’, because the second half was different from the first half – and to some Kavanaugh team mates, it was if the first half hadn’t happened.

Once half-time was over and the teams took the field, it was very apparent quarterback Christine was not in sight. The wounded psychology professor had left the stadium, as planned. Her stunning plays, however, dominated the rest of the game and Team Kavanaugh struggled mightily to recover.

It was now time for quarterback Brett to take over; he came onto the field aggressive, belligerent and angry, ready to reclaim the game, clear his name – which he claimed had been destroyed. He was hot. Coach Trump had wanted him not be to wimpy and come out emotional and hot. And he did. He played for his boss. His extremely long opening series of plays tried to run down the clock. And he filibustered like that the entire remainder of the second half.

At one point, Quarterback Kavanaugh accused the other team of not playing fair, of planning with a vast, leftwing conspiracy to take him down. Play after play, he denied sexually assaulting Ford. He denied being at the house. He was not at the party. He never got so drunk that he passed out. He never drank so much he couldn’t remember what happened. He said there was a “frenzy on the left” that allowed simple allegations to ruin his life.

And his team responded. With every play, they helped him become the victim, not Team Ford. He was on trial by the other side and he deserved the due process of the game. Why, he deserved to be on the highest-level team in the country, a life-long game.

During the first quarter of the second half, Mitchell from Arizona was still playing – but it wasn’t working, and she even fumbled the ball once or twice. So, abruptly, she was kicked off the team. And in a calculated move, teammate Graham took over with a sudden, explosive and angry outburst that will long be remembered as an extreme tactic. Clearly, he tore up the game rule book.

He tried to turn the tables around because the game wasn’t going so well for his side. At one point, he called time-out, and literally halted the game as he angrily shook his finger at the other team, charging them with making the game so politicized that he feared for the nation. He called the game “crap”, a “sham”, a “charade” – despite the fact it was his team that had set up the rules, that had chosen not to bring in the FBI referees, and who was rushing the season series. He threatened his fellow team mates that if any of them faltered by not playing with Team Kavanaugh, they would be complicit in allowing the vast left-wing conspiracy of Team Ford to win the series.

All through this half, the team Kavanaugh quarterback kicked dirt in the faces of his opponents. He evaded their tackles, sidelined their reasonable requests, and danced around them like an angry teenager. Mocking them. Deriding them. Even refusing to answer at one point.

But as the game wore on, quarterback Brett’s anger faded as the heavy defensive line rattled him. They rushed the line, broke through and brought the fabled quarterback down. Why wouldn’t he ask for an FBI investigation? Ford team mates Feinstein, Blumenthal, Durbin kept pressing on this weak spot in the opponents’ line. Kavanaugh continued to be non-responsive and – time after time – tried to run the clock down.

Then late in the game, the defense squad for Ford re-mobilized with the stances of full backs Cory Booker and Kamala Harris who simply stood up and wouldn’t let Kavanaugh squeak through their lines.

Yet team Kavanaugh had evened the score and when the last whistle was blown – it was unclear who had won. The dust had not settled. Each side left the field thinking they had been the victors. But – hey – there was or is no moral equivalency between the teams. There never was. Team Kavanaugh has been playing dirty – and suspicions have grown as to exactly why they don’t want the federal referees.

Will Team Kavanaugh lift their quarterback on their sullied shoulders and march into the Senate? Or is there even one member of their team who might have a conscience and not vote him MVP? We’ll have to see.

It was one of those games where in actuality, the grand decision will be made by the American fans of the game – in about 6 weeks.