Jack Cashill: Dr. Ford's Willfully Tangled Web

Although Ford's testimony was littered with non-material deceptions – her alleged fear of flying stands out among them – the ones that matter deal with the who and when of her assault.

The first weave in her web occurred on July 6, 2018, when Ford contacted the Washington Post's encrypted tip line. In her message, Ford told the Post of an assault by Brett Kavanaugh in the "mid-80s."

This date jibes with the notes from a 2013 therapy session, portions of which Ford later shared with the Post. Citing the therapist's notes, the Post's Emma Brown reported on August 16 that Ford was in her "late teens" when the attack occurred. Ford was born in November 1966. In the mid-'80s summer of 1985, she was 18.

Those same therapist notes indicate that four boys were involved in the assault and that these boys went on to become "highly respected and high-ranking members of society in Washington." According to Ford, the therapist made an "error" in recording "four" boys.

Mark Judge first surfaced as a participant in Ford's July 6 text to the Post. In a July 30 letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Ford added detail. "Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early 1980's," she wrote. "He conducted these acts with the assistance of his close friend, Mark G. Judge." From this point on, Judge would find himself inextricably trapped in Ford's increasingly tangled web.

In the Feinstein letter, the four boys cited in the therapist notes became "me and 4 others," one of the others being her female friend, Leland Ingham Keyser. Ford also introduced a detail that would provide the key to untangling the timeline on which she ultimately settled.

Blasey also erred in asking which three weeks Judge worked at the safeway, if only she knew that... as the attack happened 6-8 weeks before.
The problem would have been Kavanaughs calendar, and the fact swimming clubs opened their pools after Memorial day weekend, and then only for limited hours until public schools were let out.
In fact swim practice for which you would be wearing a swimsuit took place in the afternoons AFTER schools let out. Meaning, an afternoon party would have to have taken place post mid-June. Kavanaugh also has exams the first week of June and then Beach week...so isn’t in town until June 13 and his schedule is filled with dates thereafter. Six to eight weeks before is now such a narrow window for her to have seen Judge at Safeway... who only works there for three weeks, presumably before Labor day, as school is back in session after.

1-----I did a cursory search of USC Commencement Programs (the awarding of degrees ceremonies).... (The 112th:1995), (The 113th:1996), and (The 114th:1997). All three commencement ceremonies were held at USC's Alumni Memorial Park facility. The documents are available in the USC online Digital Library's "Subcollections" section, under "Commencement Programs".

http://digitallibrary.usc.edu/cdm/search/collection/p15799coll104/searchterm/Commencement%20Programs/field/parta/mode/exact/page/7

I used the "text" search feature, and none of these three Commencement Program documents (containing lists of each year's graduates to receive degrees on the days of each ceremony) had a Christine M. Blasey, or a Christine M. Ford, or Ford, or Blasey, or combinations thereof, receiving anything. Her name does NOT appear in those three year's lists of graduates in the ceremony's programs.

Maybe she graduated in absentia, or maybe it was a printer's error. Never-the-less, it is odd.

2-----Her USC doctoral dissertation, identified in Wikipedia as "Measuring Young Children's Coping Responses to Interpersonal Conflict", does appear in the USC listings of dissertations, in the USC Digital Library, under Dissertations and Theses subcollections.

The title page of her dissertation states that it was prepared "in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Counseling Psychology), August 1995". This is inconsistent with the Wikipedia page which states the PhD was in "Educational Psychology". In my mind there is quite a difference between "Counseling" and "Education", but what do I know.

3-----The Blasey Ford Wikipedia page says she was born "November 1966", with the rare absence of a "day" date. Then it lists her age as 51. Well, the math doesn't work out, does it.

So many small anomalies in this rabbit hole.

She wasn't sure what she gave the reporter.

Here's the transcript:

MITCHELL: Did you show a full or partial set of those marriage therapy records to The Washington Post?
FORD: I don’t remember. I remember summarizing for her what they said. So I’m not – I’m not quite sure if I actually gave her the record.
MITCHELL: OK. So it’s possible that the reporter did not see these notes.
FORD: I don’t know if she’s – I can’t recall whether she saw them directly or if I just told her what they said.
Source: Kavanaugh Hearing Testimony

There is likely a core of truth to the story Ford told on September 27. The evidence, however, fully exonerates Justice Brett Kavanaugh. It suggests instead that the 18-year-old Ford attended an afternoon event in 1985 at which four young men from an elitist boys' school physically abused and sexually intimidated her, after which she drove herself home.

Recovered memory is a memory which is influenced by the psychoanalyst who elicits it. A recovered memory is different from an ordinary memory in that the process of eliciting it is an even more major influence on the memory which comes out than is true of an ordinary memory. And even an ordinary memory is contaminated by the process of “retrieving” it.
But - and this is key - the subject who comes up with a “recovered” memory cannot distinguish between a “recovered” memory and any other memory the subject has (or which, depending on how you look at it, has the subject. In a very real sense, you are your memory). So testimony about a “recovered” memory is convincing as real, actual first-person eye witness testimony. But in reality, due to the intrusive way the memory is elicited, you can never get too certain about anything in a “recovered” memory. In effect, it is more like hearsay than actual testimony of a witness to the putative event.
The assumption is that something resembling the event testified to happened to the subject as an 18-y-o in 1985, but we don’t know that. Dr. Ford “knows” - is certain in her own mind (whether she knows she lied about the event or not). But the fact that she knows is not probative.
The only rational way to look at it is that it doesn’t matter. The Bret Kavanaugh who now sits as the junior member of SCOTUS got there on the basis of seven background checks on top of the reputation for probity, intelligence, and diligence over an adult lifetime tracing back over three decades. In the 3½ decades since 1982, about a third of the 1982 population has died - about half the adult population at that time. Memories have gone dim. All that really matters is due process. The alleged crime - if it occurred as indicated - wasn’t serious enough to have more than a year’s statute of limitations at that time. There are reasons for statutes of limitations. No one - Democrat or Republican - would be excited overmuch if a Democrat had a blemish like that 3½ decades back on his record.
We don’t know with ontological certitude that Kavanaugh - or anyone else his age - did not, 3½ decades ago, do anything as bad or worse than what is alleged about Kavanaugh. So what?

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