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Christine Blasey Ford, who alleges Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in high school, is willing to testify after her anonymous letter was leaked.

Confirming Kavanaugh now would be a slap in the face

Long-term memory is selective. People will even admit to things they didn't do.

You can't hold a man's youthful indiscretions against him when he's an adult.

This is the mob mentality of the #MeToo movement.

We've all heard those responses when a woman comes forward to claim that a prominent man sexually attacked her in the past. I've heard them from men, and not just Republicans, since Christine Blasey Ford allowed her name to be used in connection with her allegation of an attempted rape by Brett Kavanaugh when both were in high school. But what Ford described isn't simple boyhood misbehavior. If true, it would suggest an intent to do serious harm by holding a victim captive and silencing her by force.

Kavanaugh denied the allegation before Ford identified herself and again on Monday, saying it was "completely false."

More on Kavanaugh:Why Brett Kavanaugh's hearing is flawed

Related column:Is Brett Kavanaugh a nice guy? That's irrelevant. So is alleged sexual assault as a teen.

That is not the sort of incident one would misremember. The brain and body remember trauma, and Ford's therapist and husband have confirmed that she disclosed it to them years ago. She alerted The Washington Post through an anonymous tip line in early July, after Kavanaugh's name was on the short list for the Supreme Court. Then she contacted her member of Congress, whose office sent a letter in confidence to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Ford is now willing to testify before the committee.

And now Feinstein is calling for the FBI to investigate the allegations before the committee votes on Kavanaugh's confirmation. That's a fair request. Some focus on Ford's political motivations. Others focus on Kavanaugh's denials. Ford's lawyer, Debra Katz, said, "No one in their right mind regardless of their motive would want to inject themselves into this process and face the kind of annihilation that she will be subjected to."

And political motivations can go both ways. It's significant that Jeff Flake of Arizona and Bob Corker of Tennesee are the only two Republican senators who are urging the confirmation vote be delayed until the committee can hear from Ford. Neither is running for re-election.

Now that Ford is willing to speak, it would be more unfair to proceed with a vote without getting to the bottom of what really happened. That would be a slap in the face of every woman who has been sexually assaulted and spoke out about it.

These past few years have been a turning point, beginning with President Donald Trump's self-disclosed conduct toward women, and culminating in the Women's Marches, the emergence of the #MeToo movement and the plethora of energized women seeking political office. Republicans trying to rush Kavanaugh onto the court would try to turn the clock back at their own peril.

Rekha Basu is an opinion columnist for The Des Moines Register, where you can read the full column. You can follow her on Twitter:@RekhaBasu.

What our readers are saying

Letter to the editor:

Sexual assault and harassment of any kind cannot be tolerated, but am I the only one perplexed about the news coverage of something that was alleged to have happened in this man’s life over 35 years ago? Memories fade and can change over time with our life experiences. How can we know for sure the allegations being made against Brett Kavanaugh are actually true? More important, who cares?

Here’s an interesting approach: How about focusing on what he’s done for the last 35 years and not so much what he did as an adolescent?

Scott Roberts; St. Charles, Ill.

Comments are edited for clarity and grammar:

This is about the lack of integrity and character of Kavanaugh. If he really committed this assault, then he should admit it. That takes character and integrity — traits that a Supreme Court justice should posses. We already have enough "jerks" in the White House and in Washington, in general.

— Norma Gonzalez

I'm not sure that the events described 35 years ago should be enough to derail Kavanaugh's nomination. But if they are believed to be true, then lying about it is definitely enough to stop his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

— Anne Marie Minshall

What others are saying

Ruth Marcus, The Washington Post: "The urgency is to investigate, not to rush to confirm a lifetime appointment. Surely a few Republican senators retain enough sense of institutional responsibility to insist on that — if not because it is clearly the right thing to do, because in the era of #MeToo, their female constituents will not tolerate such rug-sweeping. ... Such a swearing contest would raise questions about both the standard of proof the Senate should require in such a case (Preponderance of evidence? Clear and convincing?) and who bears the burden of proof (Christine Blasey Ford or Brett Kavanaugh?). How sure should the Senate be before it would take the extraordinary step of denying someone confirmation on these grounds?"

Lucia Brawley, CNN.com: "Ford's testimony could stand as a harrowing indictment of Kavanaugh's abject unfitness to sit on the Supreme Court. After all, her allegation is not one of a merely inappropriate comment, but of sexual assault. If true, in a just world, the price for allegedly holding a girl down, attempting to remove her clothes, turning up music so no one can hear her protests, and muffling her screams until she manages to escape, should be quite high."

Nick Gillespie, Reason: "A case such as this one — where decades have intervened since the alleged incident, where the accuser acknowledges imprecision in her recall of events, where the accused flatly denies the charge, and where all sides perceive the stakes as gargantuan — has the potential to drive confidence and trust in politics (and the media) even lower than it already is."

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