PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

I toyed with commenting on the recent confirmation “process” – read, circus – for now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, but decided there was no point adding my voice to all those providing comments.

I did draft a blob, which I set aside, though one of its contentions was a simple one — the issue involving Kavanaugh came down to whom you chose to believe.  A number of my friends chose to believe the accuser Christine Blasey Ford.  A number of others suggested that it would be a mistake to find someone guilty without corroboration, thus turning the “innocent until proven guilty” standard on its head.

So it goes and never the twain shall meet.

Instead of posting my own blog, I decided to reprint several letters to the editor, which ran in the Wall Street Journal, all on one day. They illustrate a huge divergence of opinion on an issue that won’t soon be forgotten and that will dog our politics for years to come.

Here are the letters:

1. Regarding your editorial “The Next Kavanaugh Stakes” (October 8) and other recent editorials: Brett Kavanaugh is a better qualified judge now than when he was nominated by President Trump. How so? Because now he knows what it’s like to be victimized by a large and powerful force. The Democrats reverted to their Saul Alinsky roots by not just trying to defeat Judge Kavanaugh, but to destroy him.

Steve Tanberg, Denver

 

2. The Kavanaugh hearings painfully reminded me of the time I was drugged and molested during college in the 1970s. My disgust for my assaulter, whom I never reported, is equal to my abhorrence of the “believe survivors” diktat of the left, which dangerously seeks to negate due process. I fully support Brett Kavanaugh.

Margaret Bowen, Prairie Village, Kan.

 

3. I’m a woman who has been through sexual assault and sexual harassment. Christine Blasey Ford had a horrible experience, worse than what I lived through. She deserves the nation’s sympathy. However, her right to sympathy should not eclipse the civility of our society. There is no concrete evidence that her version of events several decades after the fact, all through the lens of psychological trauma, is fact. We do, though, have a wealth of witnesses who can attest to Judge Kavanaugh’s behavior, demeanor and record in his adult, professional life to be comfortable with his judgment as an adult, which is what is required to make a good Supreme Court justice. Quite frankly, I don’t care what he did as a minor. I care what he has done as an adult.

The focus on one alleged and unproven aspect of his past rather than dispassionately assessing the entire picture is ridiculously skewed and a violation of the values of our civil society. I’m sure that the good people of Salem, Mass., were convinced that those hanged for witchcraft were really witches, too.

Pamela Cowan, Williston, Vt.

 

4. The silver lining in the Kavanaugh/Ford story is that it makes a good starting point to discuss the dangers of alcohol use with our teenage daughters. My husband and I have discussed avoiding alcohol and drug use with them, but the real-life example of a 15-year-old girl and 17-year-old boys’ impaired judgment while drinking, with long-term, irreparable damage into their adulthood, is more effective than any lecture we could give them.

Allegra Goldberg, Great Neck, N.Y.

 

5. Am I the only mother of a teenage son who is terrified by the Kavanaugh circus? I have taught my 17-year-old to be respectful of everyone, and to try to protect himself from false accusations by never being alone with a girl in a situation where she could turn it into “she said/he said.” But what if in 10, 20 or 30 years some woman accuses my son of sexually assaulting her? Of course he will deny it. But will anyone believe him?

Vice President Mike Pence has the right idea: Avoid being alone with a woman who isn’t your spouse (or your mother). Then, I hope, one might avoid false accusations.

Women, we don’t move ourselves forward by tearing men down.

Melanie Prieger, Agoura Hills, Calif.

 

6. The means used by Democrats to block Mr. Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court bring to mind the words of Friedrich Hayek in “The Road to Serfdom,” his analysis of the emergence of fascism from collectivist ideology:

“The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule; there is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves “the good of the whole,” because the “good of the whole” is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done. The raison d’etat, in which collectivist ethics has found its most explicit formulation, knows no other limit than that set by expediency—the suitability of the particular act for the end in view.”

Bob Warner, Altadena, Calif.

 

7. In “I am an Independent, Impartial Judge”” (op-ed, October 5) Judge Kavanaugh attempted to explain away his emotional, sharp tone at the Senate confirmation hearings by stating, “I was there as a son, husband and dad.” But Judge Kavanaugh wasn’t at the hearing as a “son, husband and dad.” And his responsibility wasn’t to address his loved ones. He was there as a jurist being considered for appointment to the Supreme Court. His responsibility was to respect the nature of the hearing and the committee members seeking the truth, and to display the judicial demeanor and temperament required of someone who would serve as a Supreme Court justice. He failed to do that. He isn’t qualified to serve on the highest court.

Anita Weinberg, Evanston, Ill.

 

8. I don’t think Brett Kavanaugh owes anybody an apology for expressing emotion at a hearing where his good name and his ability to live life as he knows it was at stake. The only ones owing anyone an apology are the particular senators who ambushed him to increase their own political power, while not caring if they destroyed his and Prof. Ford’s lives in the process.

Judges are human, too. They certainly have a right to be upset when accused, especially if wrongly accused.

Heather Jones, Fairfax, Va.

 

9. There is nothing Judge Kavanaugh can now say that will redeem him from his injudicious, spiteful, disrespectful performance at the Senate hearing. He totally blew it while blowing his top.

Karen R. Kane, Rolling Prairie, Ind.

 

10. I want to thank Sen. Susan Collins as the mother of a son, who I pray is never wrongly accused and considered guilty until proved innocent; as the mother of a daughter, an engineer, who I fear will lose out on honorable men mentoring her; as the wife of an honorable man; as a lawyer who was mentored by honorable men; and as a citizen who is scared for our nation after watching the Kavanaugh hearings. Sen. Collins’s speech was a master class in how politics is supposed to work and why it didn’t in this case. I am grateful for her part in educating those who don’t know any better.

Carla Albers, Colorado Springs, Colo.

 

11. Regarding your editorial “The Never Conservatives” (October 4): I imagine many women and minorities don’t share a judicial philosophy of an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, given that we were not part of that process. I disagree strongly with the characterization that investigating claims of sexual harassment or assault was a Democratic plan to destroy Clarence Thomas or Brett Kavanaugh. I think that the party of “personal responsibility” needs to be more ready to hold its members accountable for their actions.

The resistance is about our refusal to turn the clock backward. Judge Kavanaugh might have been the gold standard for a nominee previously, but in the #MeToo moment of today, where the traditionally disenfranchised and oppressed refuse to be silenced, he is not the right person for the Supreme Court.

I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton after he lied to the American people about his behavior; I thought he should have resigned. It was wrong for Democrats to have defended him. Women will no longer be bullied and silenced.

Erin McCoy, Fort Lee, N.J.

 

12. Just think, if Harry Reid hadn’t changed the Senate filibuster rule in 2013, the Democrats could have blocked Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination. Oh well.

Bill Fellows, Stanford, Calif.

 

13. After that despicable performance by the Senate Democrats, the voters of California have their own opportunity to play a real-life version of “The Apprentice” and say, “Feinstein, you’re fired!”

David Weiss, Coronado, Calif.