Quantum Kavanaugh
Schrödinger’s cat is famously in a box in an unknown state - dead or alive. The cat’s state is not “partially dead” - it is not dead in any part until the box is opened and the fact is known.
The American presumption of innocence should be in some respect similar. When an allegation is made, the accused is not “partially guilty.” He or she is not guilty at all until and unless evidence is introduced, and adjudged, to demonstrate that guilt.
Dr. Christine Blasey (she does not use the name “Ford”) had previously offered only a bare assertion about an attack by a teenage Brett Kavanaugh. In actually testifying, she drew attention to problems in her testimony and character. The net result is that her testimony was not sufficient to “collapse the innocence state” and show Brett Kavanaugh to be guilty of this assault. And while the standard in this sort of crime is “beyond a reasonable doubt,” even the civil standard of “preponderance of the evidence” was not reached.
The mere allegation, based upon her memory and her integrity in recounting it, was undercut by her testimony. Among the problems:
- She is not a psychologist: She didn’t make it sixty seconds into her statement before committing perjury. She asserted that she was a psychologist. She is not. She has studied the field, but California law prohibits any persons from holding themselves out to be psychologists unless licensed by the state. Dr. Blasey is not, not under any variation of her name, and not even for a past license. Here’s the site I used.
- Polygraph payment: She demonstrated that her memory is extremely poor. When asked if she paid for the storied polygraph test, she didn’t remember. Note that this is not the same as “I don’t know who paid for it” - that money would have come through some Soros-funded organization. But she did not remember whether she had paid for it.
- Post-Press Memory Loss: She does not even remember whether or not she sent her therapist’s notes from the 2012 sessions to the Washington Post last month. They said they got them from her - does she not even remember that?
- Day of the funeral: She was in the Washington DC area for only a brief time, for the funeral of her grandmother. But she did not remember whether the funeral took place on the same day as the polygraph - which was just last month.
- Time of the polygraph: She testified that the polygraph test took a long time, and that she was hooked up everywhere. (Polygraph tests are not invasive, and you’d think a pseudo-psychologist would know something about them.) The polygraph operator had a completely different story in his letter. He obtained a statement from Dr. Blasey in her childlike “Chrissy” scrawl - I can picture her tongue protruding as she printed it - then he went over this memo sheet with her, then hooked her up and asked two questions: Was the statement correct? and Did she make any part of it up? That was it. She was done. This was an extremely irregular polygraph test.
- Bringing harm upon her best friend: When challenged as to why her “best friend” Laura Ingham Keyser did not back her story, she said, before an audience of tens of millions of people, that her friend was having medical problems, and really did back her up by texting her recently. This friend deserves more consideration for her privacy. That friend deserves another moment of thought, as well. I’ll address this below, but it is basically what the dog didn’t do in the night-time.
- “Chrissy” versus The Professor: During her questioning, there was an ongoing battle between the 50-something college professor and the confused little girl: “Chrissy” used the quavering voice of a child throughout her testimony, and seemed to possess the understanding of a child. (She didn’t know what “exculpatory” meant despite many years of experience in the psychiatric field.) But occasionally, the Professor would claw her way into the conversation, interjecting pseudo-scientific hokum. These big-word responses were misleading, and in many cases completely wrong. For example, the Professor woke up and asserted that memory is “indelibly stored in the hippocampus.” It is not. The hippocampus is involved, as are other brain components, but she sounded like an amateur who had read a book on brain function and simply misremembered it. All under oath, of course.
- Fear of Flying: This turned out to be a complete hoax. She flew to the hearing. She flew to the polygraph test last month. She flew every year for family get-togethers. All of these could have been reached by car, but she chose to fly. And she flies to vacation spots on islands including Hawai’i and Tahiti. Does it make her a little anxious? Who knows, but it is clearly not enough to influence her behavior. The fear of flying but was a political stall tactic to delay the vote.
- Going Public: She started talking this up with friends and relatives, who told her (among other things) to contact Congress. Little Chrissy professed not to know how to reach her member of Congress. This is a college professor. But despite her letter asking that the matter be treated in confidence, she nevertheless acquired legal representation, got the polygraph test done, and contacted the New York Times (which was evidently not interested) and the Washington Post (which was). When the allegations and her name were leaked, she was ready.
Those citing her “courage” frequently claim that “she has everything to lose.” That seems unlikely to me. Anita Hill held no animus toward Clarence Thomas, but was highly motivated to allege terrible things about him by the deal the Democrats offered. Even though Hill was completely discredited, she still made millions from book sales and speaking gigs, and she is still a heroine to the Democrats today. Christine Blasey was already a fierce anti-Trump partisan activist. The destruction of a Trump nominee would suit her perfectly.
So, money, fame, popularity (among fellow Leftists) and the accomplishment of her fervently desired political goal. That’s what she has to gain. And this will be true whether Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed or not.
The Friend Didn’t Notice
Christine Blasey’s “best friend” in high school presumably knew her well. And yet, despite seeing her probably every school day and (according to Blasey) during the summer as well, Ms. Keyser did not notice any dramatic change in her best friend. Were Blasey’s story actually true about how traumatized she was over all of this, she could have checked with Keyser and other friends to find out when they noticed Blasey suddenly becoming reserved or taciturn. But there was no change worth remarking upon, and nothing made it into Keyser’s affidavit.
Canny Allegations
If she had crafted a knowingly false allegation just to destroy Brett Kavanaugh, she would have reached the same result:
- No specific date, not even the year, so that the accused cannot prove an alibi such as “I was vacationing overseas at that time.”
- No specific location, so that people living there at the time could be questioned.
- No witnesses other than the accused. (She made a mistake here. Even others she alleges were at the party, her “best friend” and a boy she called “PJ,” deny any such attendance.)
- No memory of how she arrived, or how she got home, so there are no other parties involved who could be questioned. It was too far to walk, and she has not suggested that she walked.
- No discussions with anyone of the alleged incident, not parents, not best friends, not counselors, not law enforcement, until thirty years later during therapy, for which it might have been a useful excuse or permission for problematic behavior. It was a somewhat different story then anyway, with no mention of Kavanaugh.
All of this she has rehearsed at length, but still gets parts of it wrong. The number of other people involved seems to fluctuate every time she tells the story.
What is here for the FBI to investigate? There is no starting place.
What Was NOT Asked
Did she read Mark Judge’s book about high school alcoholic involvement? It would have provided details of Mark and his friend Brett and alchohol involvement, and might have inspired such a story.
What about her yearbooks? As I have related, her own high school yearbooks portray her classmates as party-hearty wild things bragging about “raiding” the nearby boys’ schools for “innocent” young targets. The yearbooks picture underage girls with beers in their hands, and describe their various hard-liquor drinking games resulting in (they said) them passing out. The racism described is a side issue, but part of the flavor of Holton Arms High School.
The upshot
After evaluating Professor testimony, it is only fair to conclude that Brett Kavanaugh is still innocent. Not partly guilty, not maybe guilty, not almost guilty. That box has been opened.
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle