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The racial and cultural gap that divides elite White guy Brett Kavanaugh and underprivileged Black guy Clarence Thomas may not be much in evidence when nubile law clerks pass the two of them in the quiet chambers of the U. S. Supreme Court.
“Nice butt.” Justice Brett might say.
“Not dissenting from that view.” Justice Clarence might answer .
Reporters don’t tell us how Justice Ruth and Justice Sonia relate to Justice Clarence, but we can be pretty sure that when irascible young Brett joins the court, those women will, as any female white-collar worker would under similar circumstances, view the two sexual predators as a fraternal order of some kind. The taint that stuck to Thomas will bind him to Kavanaugh, producing a stink that will detract from the dignity of the entire court.
Some observers believe Kavanaugh was elevated in spite of his history of sexual predation. More likely is that he was elevated because of his spotty record and not despite it. When you’re recruiting personnel for a racketeering outfit, best practice is to find people who are tolerant of deviant conduct. Parties to crime and their facilitators tend not to blow whistles on their criminal associates.
It’s not that difficult to find qualified miscreants. Liars and cheats can, if they’re clever enough, rise to positions of power and authority by using dishonesty to their advantage. Creators of fiction from Dickens to Le Carre tell us how it’s done, and social scientists confirm that psychopathic types are overrepresented among real-life chief executives and other high-prestige types.
We’ve had an unbroken string of criminal presidents over the course of decades, culminating with the present comic-book villain, and so it should come as no surprise that our federal government is populated at the top with politically connected cheats and liars of various talents. Kavanaugh should fit right in. As a member of one of Yale University’s secret frats, he’s been in training for this very special arm of the deep state since adolescence.
Government has evolved to accommodate its malfeasant administrators. People who were disposed to perform ethically in their jobs have long since departed the upper echelons of government service. The tiny fringe who had the effrontery to unmask corrupt authority, people like Brett’s teenage victim Christine Blasey, have all been discredited, and they stand as an object lesson to would-be stool pigeons. It’s a lesson directed not only at women who are abused by powerful men but at the subordinate males who ought to protect them. Complain, and you will be crushed.
I terminated my law career some years ago, partly because of age and infirmity, but mostly because of my distrust of what we blithely refer to as our system of justice. I won’t have occasion to appear before Justice Kavanaugh, but lawyers who do, if they’re anything like me, will have trouble contemplating the black robe without also imagining the man inside the robe displaying his genitalia to unfortunate onlookers.