The Kavanaugh-Ford-Feinstein kerfuffle appears to be this weeks’ progressive-tantrum du-jour, just as the Kavanaugh hearing was of last week, and John McClain’s funeral and epic post-mortem diss of his former running mate was that of the week before. The whole thing – a hazily recalled teenage memory of a clumsy grope at a booze-fueled suburban bacchanal – reminds me nothing so much as Great Aunt Ada Doom in Cold Comfort Farm and her incessant insistence on having “seen something nasty in the woodshed” which sight so traumatized her that she was able to ride roughshod over the rest of the clan at Cold Comfort for decades. What the ‘something nasty in the woodshed’ was is never actually described in the story – but Great Aunt Ada wields her hysterical claim of having suffered from it with the expertise of a master in conducting guided guilt trips through most of the book, until she is talked down from her room by the clever heroine.

I can only assume that Christine Ford somehow hoped that lobbing such a vague, unsubstantiated accusation in the direction of Brett Kavanaugh would have had the same paralyzing effect as Ada Doom having seen ‘something nasty in the woodshed’ decades previously. I assume that since she went as far as sanitizing her social media, she anticipated some personal scrutiny, yet hoped to avoid the uncomfortable questions asked by those interested in actually discovering the truth, if any, in her accusation. Not being able to pin down a firm date, an exact place, and having those people specifically named as having been involved at Dr. Ford’s unpleasant teenage experience deny categorically ever having been present, and that none of her one-time friends and contemporaries can say that she confided in them at the time, ought to strike a fair-minded observer as cause for doubting that Christine Ford ever encountered Brett Kavanaugh, drunk or sober, at anyone’s house. He seems to have been a man of restraint and probity when it comes to social and professional relations with women. Personal experience with the male of our species suggests to me that a total Boy Scout/Little Lord Fauntleroy as an adult has usually been that since before his testicles dropped, and during all the years between.

Frankly, I am too old to credit vague, unsubstantiated accusations like this. Christine Ford may have been quite the at-large juvenile party animal as a teenager, so I would accept the possibility of an unfortunate, drunken sexual experience being part of her past, as well as a good reason to seek relationship counseling as an adult. Yet I also remember the ‘recovered memory’ phenomenon, the day-care Satanic abuse bruhaha, as well as the more recent Duke stripper rape and the U of V fraternity/Rolling Stone fantasy rape-that-never-was. Yes, there are fads and follies when it comes to mental health and investigating sexual violence, or the possibility thereof. Yes, women are capable of lying, every bit as much as men, and of being vengeful, backbiting witches, completely capable of displacing blame for their own personal dysfunction on any handy target. Christine Ford’s target of blame for her personal woes seems to have landed on a male target of choice, because of his prominence in the news cycle. Would it be too much to ask of women such as herself and her allies in Capital F-feminism that they work out their traumas in privacy, and refrain from inflicting them on the rest of us? Seriously, I would like that. It’s gotten to the point where sensible women are fleeing any association with strident Capital F feminism, and some men are wondering sourly if it was really a good idea to give us a vote at all.
Discuss, as you will.

3 Comments

  1. John F. MacMichael

    I love “Cold Comfort Farm”. One passage in it that seems particularly relevant to Christine Ford’s story concerns Aunt Ada Doom’s thoughts at the end of Chapter 10. I will just quote the last two paragraphs:

    “You told them you were mad. You had been mad since you saw something nasty in the woodshed, years and years and year ago. If any of them went away, to any other part of the country, you would go much madder. Any attempt by any of them to get away from the farm made one of your attacks of madness come on. It was unfortunate in some ways but useful in others…The woodshed incident had twisted something in your child-brain seventy years ago.

    And seeing that it was because of that incident that you sat here ruling the roost and having five meals a day brought up to you as regularly as clockwork, it hadn’t been such a bad break for you, that day you saw something nasty in the woodshed.”

    Christine Ford’s supporters proclaim that she must be telling the truth because why else would she expose herself and her family to the controversy and criticism that have result from her going public. She has received hate mail, death threats! I am sure she has. Somehow they seem quite unconcerned about any such unpleasantness directed at Brett Kavanaugh or Senator Collins. At the same time, I think we can be pretty damn sure that Ford will canonized as a saint and martyr of the Holy Church of Feminism. In the social circles she lives and moves in she will be praised and admired. The controversy (however it comes out) will probably give her career a very nice boost. Anita Hill did very well for herself out of her attack on Clarence Thomas. Not such a bad break for her (Ford) either, I expect.

  2. John F. MacMichael

    Anita Hill’s Case Proves Christine Blasey Ford Has a Lot to Gain via @LifeZette – https://www.lifezette.com/2018/09/anita-hills-case-proves-christine-blasey-ford-has-a-lot-to-gain/

    I post this link as a follow up to my comment above. Mark Tapshott looks back at how Anita Hill did quite well financially after her accusations of Clarence Thomas and how Christine Ford is likely to do so as well. I was interested to learn that GoFundMe accounts have already raised over $700,000 for Dr. Ford.

  3. John F. MacMichael

    Sorry, I misspelled the last name of the writer I linked to above. That should be “Tapscott”.