Published more than five years after her 2018 congressional testimony, Blasey Ford’s new memoir, “One Way Back,” is an important entry into the public record — a lucid if belated retort to Senator Chuck Grassley’s 414-page, maddening memo on the investigation — but a prosaic one.
The book is important, lucid, belated, and prosaic, we're told.
Christine, the youngest, attended the all-girls Holton-Arms in Bethesda, in social circles concentric with Kavanaugh, a student at the all-boys Georgetown Prep... It was, she writes, “the height of an early ’80s John Hughes era that glamorized a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’” and it was in such a boys-will-be-boys milieu that she tells of being attacked....
Blasey Ford never wavers from her certainty that it was the young Kavanaugh looming over her in that room, but she doesn’t seem hellbent on bringing him down. As she mulled going public, “If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general,” she writes. “I might have wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know, he was a jackass in high school, but now he’s not.’”...
Blasey Ford suffered from her testimony.... There are some perks from being in the public eye. Blasey Ford is served bisque by Laurene Powell Jobs, sleeps over at Oprah Winfrey’s house, goes backstage at a Metallica concert. Her sons get the actual shirt off Steph Curry’s back at a Golden State Warriors game.
Strange celebrity. I have pre-existing tags for that entire diverse array — Oprah, Laurene Powell Jobs, Steph Curry, Metallica.
Though her signature phrase was mined for a McSweeney’s anthology of #MeToo writings, Blasey Ford is not a poet, after all, but a scientist, and the mess of fact and fiction about her case rankled on a cellular level....
What?? I click the link to McSweeney's. I hadn't remembered the "signature phrase"....
Posts
101 comments:
You mean it might not have been the same guy?
I love how leftists don't need absolute truth to level their accusations.
Leftists are really in tune to the 'belief' that something is true. Anything that reinforces that belief is a good thing - it is taken as evidence, where none exists.
I may be getting alleged victims of sexual assault mixed up here (Ford? Carroll?), but does Ford get around to finally identifying place, date, and time of the alleged assault? IIRC neither Ford nor Carroll were specific with details.
Seems she was able to improve the quality of her "Beach Friends".
The extent of the perjury in her testimony is easy to ascertain. Her allies threatening her former friend who is a recovering alcoholic and true to her recovery refused to perjure herself is beyond heinous. That Congress permits such perjury is further evidence of our rot. That the media and Dems celebrate it and are silent in the face of the threats to her friend tells you all that you need to know about these people.
It was a lie, and now it's a novel.
Buy one now!! Fuel your Trump Derangement Syndrome.
For anyone who could somehow care to know what this con artist bitch thinks about anything, reading about it would have to be considered hugely preferable to listening to her (again) tell about it.
One more hit job from someone seeking another undeserved 15 minutes of fame.
'Even though it might not have been him, he should have apologized.'
classic leftist thinking.
The irony of a memoir written by "I-can't-remember-any-of-the-pertinent-details-but-I'm-sure-it-happened-just-the-way-I-said-it-did" CBF.
Curious as you read the book, Professor -- does CB ever mention meeting Kavenaugh before or after the incident? I have always thought it strange that she was sure her assailant was someone she (otherwise) may never have met.
Has she remembered what year it was?
Modern Democrats really do have some remarkably undeserving heroes, Joe Biden, George Floyd, Nex Benedict, Christine Blasey Ford, etc.
When I was a Democrat our heroes were the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr., Harry Truman, JFK, Eleanor Roosevelt. Not perfect people, but no pathological, lying grifters, convicted felons, perjurers or sexually confused teens among them.
I recall reading an article something like, "10 reasons not to believe Christine Blasey-Ford. There were some good ones: no corroboration, contradicted by her own
"witnesses", incomplete facts, her false statements (fear of flying), and more. In fact, there was no reason to believe her beyond political wishful thinking. Nevertheless, she had, and probably still has, her girly fan club who will likely buy this exercise in fabulism.
My new favorite phrase applies: "Evil owns us."
Howard and Blasey-Ford: delusional, broken persons of the Left
.... and very word a lie except the and if.
She's like Dan Rather. Even if it didn't happen as she said, it fits the narrative and so, it probably could have happened as she said, and that's enough. Show me the man and I'll show you the crime.
That’s a billion dollar defamation from NYT…
Grifters got to grift. Liars got to lie.
Part of the goal with this book (besides money) is to remind women how terrible a person Donald Trump is and that he will most certainly appoint more rapists to SCOTUS if he gets elected.
CBF is such an obvious liar. I wonder if she tries to answer those who questioned her credibility. Doubt it.
Two things I recall from her perjured performance:
1. Some absurd story about her home in Palo Alto with two front doors.
2. She claimed that since HS, she was afraid of small spaces. But it turned out she flew in small planes all the time in the Pacific to go scuba diving or something like that.
Another two points:
1. The late Nebraska federal court judge Lyle Strom said that every trial is a contest of credibility. When Brett pulled out his summer HS calendar, it was over.
2. Brett's mom would tell juries: Use your common sense.
Nevertheless, she had, and probably still has, her girly fan club who will likely buy this exercise in fabulism
Ann found her testimony ‘credible’.
And don't forget her best friend from high school never backed up CBF's story. And then the friend got slimed because she developed a drinking problem later in life.
The Dems are the worst people in America.
"Lucid"?
They should have titled it "Fry."
Ah she'll always have her truth. And I seem to recall that I played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, batted .376 for one year with the San Diego Padres, and got the Nobel Prize for Medicine having discovered a cure for Ebola. That's "my truth". LOL
Ah she'll always have her truth. And I seem to recall that I played quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, batted .376 for one year with the San Diego Padres, and got the Nobel Prize for Medicine having discovered a cure for Ebola. That's "my truth". LOL
Lucidly displays CBF as phony and the lengths progs will go to beat any non-prog.
"“If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ "
Who would do that? If I don't remember doing something, there's no way I'd say, "maybe it happened"
Meanwhile, there was this whole thing of; she can't testify because she's afraid to fly on account of her trauma, then she flew out to testify and it turns out she'd flown lots of times to do snorkeling or scuba diving or something like that. Did that claim come from her lawyers? If so, did Ford tell them, did they just make it up? It seems to me that it's Ford who's the liar. She either lied about her fear of flying or she was silent while her lawyers lied on her behalf.
Without Senators in Sight
In other words, not under oath.
Was there a "a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene" in The Breakfast Club? I don't recall such a scene and I couldn't find one with a search, but what the hell, the whole thing is about misremembering and imagining party scenes anyway, so why check? I guess we're supposed to think of Blasey Ford as a sweet, innocent little Molly Ringwald who's coming of age was ruined by that ogre...if she remembers right...she was really drunk at the time...whenever it was.
Rats and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of.
Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of.
To me it seems Ford has run out of money. She is monetizing the defamation for her own gain.
Why given this woman any more attention on your blog? She belongs in a dustbin.
She accused him, without evidence.
She couldn't remember what year or month it happened. It was sometime between "May and October" because she was wearing a swim suit. She didn't really know kavanaugh, and only met him a few times.
She couldn't remember exactly where it happened, or in whose house.
She didn't tell her mother or father or anybody AT THE TIME. She didn't tell the police, anyone in school, take any notes or mention it in her diary. She told no one for 30 years.
She didn't mention it when Kavanaugh was up for Appeals court.
But she could remember it was kavanaugh. And what music was playing. And what they said. And what she wore. And how much she drank. And a dozen other little details.
Again, as I said at the time, this "vagueness" was deliberate. Name the house, and Kavanaugh could produce people to say it couldn't have happened there. Name the time, and Kavanaugh could prove he wasn't there.
Its incredible this was part of a SCOTUS confimation. Even if Kavanaugh had done it, what would it have mattered? It was HS, 30 years ago. There was no PATTERN of Kavanaugh sexually abusing women.
Leftists aren't moral people.
I wonder how many nights Tara Reade has spent at Oprah’s.
As she mulled going public, “If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general,” she writes. “I might have wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know, he was a jackass in high school, but now he’s not.
Did he know she was mulling over going public? Did she give him a chance to do that?
Maybe she did, but I doubt she would have been satisfied by that. He would have had to withdraw his name. And that would have been a tacit admission of guilt. What she says there is completely unreasonable under the circumstances at the time. She's trying to portray herself as not vindictive.
And why is her behavior chalked up to the debauched high school party culture of the time, but his is not? She didn't say he raped her. He just supposedly acted like a jackass one night in high school. But 40 years later her 'One Way Back' is to exact her revenge and ruin his life? Back to what?
It sounds like she is really paying a steep price for her heroic stand.
"It was, she writes, “the height of an early ’80s John Hughes era that glamorized a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles..." My first thought was that's a weird take on those movies.
So she was a Metallica gal? She listen to them in college? Metallica?
Timely release date ... 7 months before the election. One candidate says "If you give me a Congress that's Democrat, we're going to change it back to Roe v. Wade,". Biden is pretty darn good with on the stump quips. Everybody gets what he means without having to wonder what the heck it means.
I enjoy the WEB Griffin historical fiction novels. They have fictional characters and narratives wrapped around real life events and people. I don't think this latest fiction will compare as well.
"If he’d come to me, really leveled with me, and said, ‘I don’t remember this happening, but it might have, and I’m so sorry,’ it might have been a significant, therapeutic moment for survivors in general,” she writes. “I might have wobbled a bit. I might have thought, ‘You know, he was a jackass in high school, but now he’s not.’”...
The new standard. Men are responsible for things that didn't happen, but could have in the mind of flakey delusional women, so they need to apologize.
Also perhaps if the women decided to seek their apologies before the guys they accuse become rich and famous, instead of at a time and in a manner calculated to publicly ruin them, there might be a smidgen of credibility.
R.C. Belaire--as I recall she purported to have identified a specific time and place; her former friends said it didn't happen, and Kavanaugh had a high school calendar which appeared to show he was out of town that day. So the story got a little fuzzy about when and where.
If any wavering men need a reminder why they should never vote Democrat, revisiting the Kavanaugh hearings is a good one.
Do they explain what parts of Grassley's 414-page memo are "maddening?" The parts that prove beyond a doubt that she was lying? I.E., all of it?
Five years to get the story straight.
It was, she writes, “the height of an early ’80s John Hughes era that glamorized a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’...
The Breakfast Club takes place entirely within a single Saturday detention in the school library. No parties, no sex, no nudity, no drinking. Some pot smoking.
By Any Means Necessary to preserve Roe v Wade.
She is a moral cretin.
I have a perspective denied to the rest of you. I have actually seen the ‘84 Holton-Arms Yearbook. The Christine Blasey staring out at the world ftom the pictures was a drunken slut. While I realize that even a prostitute can be sexually assaulted, the odds of a nonconsensual encounter do go down.
There are other reasons to doubt her story. First, women who have genuinely assaulted remember all of the details — precisely when, precisely where, what they were wearing, etc. It reminds me in many ways of the people I know who have PTSD , and it wouldn’t surprise me if the psychological effect was related. Blasey Ford could not even remember the year until she consulted Kavanaugh’s calendar (to pick a date when he was in town).
Add to that the intense, unethical efforts to attempt to get Leland Ingham Keyser, the friend of Blasey Ford who allegedly took her to the party and brought her home, to perjure herself in order to support Blasey Ford’s testimony strongly suggests that Blasey Ford was lying. The related harassment of Mark Judge, allegedly an accomplice to the alleged assault, came out later, but increases the likelihood that Blasey Ford’s testimony was part of a hoax.
And then there was Ford’s own lying. She claimed to have had a fear of flying that prevented her from coming to Washington — yet she had made multiple transpacific flights to go on surfing vacations. What is it you lawyers say, Althouse? Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus?
In summary, if on a jury I would not vote to convict a dog of chasing a cat based on the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford. No wonder her father felt constrained to apologize to Justice Kavanaugh’s father.
There was a debauched high school party scene in "The Breakfast Club"?
Kavanaugh says he didn't do it. Why would she hope he would tell her it might have happened? I certainly wouldn't say that about something I don't remember and that I believe to be out of character for me.
That phrase about her hippocampus is about all I remember about her.
I guess she doesn't have Hunter's artistic talents. I'd call it 'vanity press', but it's really more like the laundering model that politicians use to raise funds: Have a ghostwriter dash up a draft, publish it after a little light editing, then turn it out for $50 a pop. Let's make a list of the people that buy it, and then decide if it's laundering (Hint: It is). The Party is just taking care of its obligations. Is she still practicing her little girl voice?
Curious as you read the book, Professor -- does CB ever mention meeting Kavenaugh before or after the incident? I have always thought it strange that she was sure her assailant was someone she (otherwise) may never have met.
@Terry, her father and Kavanaugh’s belonged to the same, very exclusive country club. The families appear to have been socially acquainted.
It’s just not fair that Anita Hill is still famous and a “feminist icon” for telling a story the Senate disbelieved; and still gets speaking fees, but Christine gets bupkes.
The sexy come-hither photo of Christine Blasey Ford illustrating the NYTimes article looks nothing like the schoolmarmish woman with the squeaky little girl vocal fry voice who testified before Congress.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/15/books/review/christine-blasey-ford-memoir-one-way-back.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dE0.30OT.NiK753kz1hwT&smid=url-share
has Kavenaugh called CBF liar yet? can he be tried for libel/defamation?
if Trump v Carroll case goes to USSC will Justice K need to recuse?
has Kavenaugh called CBF liar yet? can he be tried for libel/defamation?
if Trump v Carroll case goes to USSC will Justices Kavenaugh and Thomas need to recuse?
Granted, I haven't seen the movie in a long time but I don't recall "a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene" in The Breakfast Club. That movie is about a group of students who are on Saturday detention in the school library.
The new book is a triple. A cry for attention, a cry for help, and a cry for money.
Maybe the whole thing was a lucid dream.
How groovy would that be?
Believe all women. am I right?
She is a fucking lunatic, with all due respect to lunatics...
I will remember the late Senator Feinstein for 2 notable but horrible achievements - the gratuitous slander of Judge Kavanaugh, and the absurd unconstitutional "assault" weapons ban.
;
Other words for prosaic
- ordinary, everyday; vapid, humdrum, tedious, tiresome, uninteresting
Any publicity is good for sales, but it is a brutal review.
@Terry, her father and Kavanaugh’s belonged to the same, very exclusive country club. The families appear to have been socially acquainted.
Thanks, Big Mike. That country club is Burning Tree, which at that time did not allow women into the clubhouse. Yes, the fathers were acquainted but I have seen no evidence that the families were. The kids would not have met at Burning Tree. CBF's best friend, the one supposedly at the incident, said she never knew Kananaugh. When Kavanaugh was first told CBF's name, he said that he had never met her. I wish someone had asked "Had you ever met K before the incident, and have you ever met him since?" Nothing i have seen indicates that she had/has.
Tara Reade could not be reached for comment.
I smell bovine excrement.
The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant. - Salvador Dali
#Metoo called. They want their "beleive all women" back.
Poor deluded Blasey Ford, sans crazy lady glasses this time, still thinks its 2017.
As others have pointed out, there is no hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene in ‘The Breakfast Club.’ But it doesn't matter - it was in SOME movie, just like SOME dude might have attacked Ford at a party, so it must have been Kavanaugh.
Kavanugh should sue her in a red state with an elected judge. Get a defamation judgment for $83 million.
Christine was a booze hound mattress-back in high school and college. It was a widely known fact. It's the reason her own father supported Kavanaugh and didn't believe Christine's BS.
The real shame is that Trump and the Republicans went to the mattresses for ....Kavanaugh.
He was a terrible choice, a clever clogs don't rock the boat DC establishment Republican, of no use to man or beast. And they expended huge quantities of political capital to get him onto SCOTUS where he has sat like a Roberts clone desperately trying to avoid doing anything that might offend the libs. Even after his confirmation experience, he still imagines that he'll be loved if only he keeps on making nice.
What a loser, and what a waste of effort putting him on the court.
Many works of fiction are important, lucid, belated, prosaic, or some combination thereof. Mrs. Blasey Ford's work of fiction is not.
It's election season again and time to bring up abortion in order to get the single white college women out to support the Democrats.
-Kamala Harris visits an abortion clinic.
-CBF has a book out-Supreme Court!
-And more to come!
a hypersexualized, debauched high school party scene as depicted in movies like ‘The Breakfast Club’ and ‘Sixteen Candles,’”
Yeah, no. 'The Breakfast Club' is shot solely in school on Saturday detention. There is a party in 'Sixteen Candles' but it is not hypersexualized or debauched.
That tell us, that they are writing for effect and not for people how have critical thinking or memory
There was no party scene in The Breakfast Club.
Which makes it the perfect reference for this fanciful telling.
let's get to the thing WE ALL WANT To know.. Does Althouse STILL think CBF is "creditable"?
if so.. WHY??
I remember this at the time - summer of 2018? The first report was by Emma Brown (I think, of Washington Post) and she was late teens and around 1985 and it seemed plausible - except Kavanaugh was then at University and no way he'd go back to a school party.
So it became 1982(?) and she was 15. So how did she get to the party? Then she lied about fear of flying and suddenly she was a liar. Maybe she did have the experience in 1985. But not with Kavanaugh.
Stalin had a 'belief' that some of his 'comrades' might be reactionaries... and so he had them all shot.. just to make sure.
I am pretty sure that is how the Democrats view things.
I have to admit I greatly enjoyed her Dr. Babytalk testimony. There was a guilty pleasure to it, and the only disappointing thing was that she didn't strip while doing it. It was pretty amazing really how the media went along with it and almost played bass and snare drum slowly while she performed.
Kavanaugh boyhood friend Mark Judge has been pretty outspoken over the years, and used that support for Kavanaugh to launch a career as an op-ed opinion columnist. I’ll be interestedt to see how he reacts to the new book by Blasey Ford.
She was full of shit then. She's full of shit now.
Hard pass.
“He should have apologized for the stuff that he did in my dream,” but of course lucid dreams are self directed so there’s that.
Maybe she did have the experience in 1985. But not with Kavanaugh.
maybe she was so wacked on drugs and drink, that she has NO IDEA who she did it with..
maybe she has a brain so wacked on drugs and drink, that she doesn't really have any idea WHEN or WHERE..
All of this CONCLUSIVELY PROVES something.. mostly, that Kavanaugh was someone they wanted to destroy
{also, that she was a sleazy little drug whore*}
sleazy little drug whore*
speaking as someone who had a fair amount of business deals back in the '80's with sleazy little drug whores
The pursuit of Brett Kavanaugh never made any sense. It’s an article of faith on the Left that the male brain doesn’t develop fully until age 25, therefore we can’t possibly hold young men responsible for their actions.
Remember Abbie Hoffman's book, titled "Steal This Book"? If by any remote chance you want to read Ford's book, steal it don't buy it. Don't feed her.
There was a debauched high school party scene in "The Breakfast Club"?
Yes! CBF remembers it in detail! A testament to her powers of recall.
She's still milking the con after all these years. I don't think anyone's buying now - she failed in her mission, and no-one wants to be remingded of their failures.
"The Dems are the worst people in America."
In the world, perhaps the universe.
Expand your horizons.
It cost trump $80 million to declare his innocence when accused of rape. Why cant Kavanaugh sue Ford into homelessness?
That woman was just so obviously lying that anyone who wasn't completely blinded by partisanship should have recognized it immediately. The fake "little-girl" voice was the biggest tell, but the whole story was obviously a lie crafted so that it could not be disproved: "Oh! I can't remember the specific date...or the month... or the year...or what town I was in... or who I went to the party with...or how I got home... Oh! Also I never told anybody except my therapist... but he wrote it down wrong...and I'm afraid of flying ... except when I fly all over the world to go surfing...etc."
Libel and slander laws need a major revision. The "public person" liability shield that the Court pulled out its butt in NYT vs. Sullivan should be revised to be limited to the Constitutionally correct "public official," and only in regard to actions done while the person held or his holding an official position. Add to this an "objective truth" anti-SLAPP protection for writers/publishers and we might be able to restore a smidge of honesty to our discourse and not limit potential public servants to the small set of people who don't care if they are dishonestly maligned.
"Why cant Kavanaugh sue Ford into homelessness?"
Because reasons.
Blasey-Ford was a lying sack of shit, and no memoir is ever going to change that.
"Why cant Kavanaugh sue Ford into homelessness?"
Silly rabbit- only Democrats can use that tactic.
Assuming that Ford was giving false testimony, whether it was intentional or misremembered, I wonder if Justice Kavanaugh forgave or will forgive her. I know he recounted a story of how he and his daughter felt badly for Ford but I'm assuming that was largely recounted for the purpose of the hearing so I can't be sure of the genuineness of any emotions involved. Based on how loudly he cheered at the swearing in ceremony I'm assuming Justice Thomas has little or no charitable feelings for Ford.
Let's keep things straight. CBF spent the summer practicing diving at Columbia Country Club, not Congressional or Burning Tree. Columbia is near both Bethesda and Chevy Chase. None of these places were habitats for "hypersexualized orgies." It is to laugh. And what does it mean to say that your "social circles are concentric" with those of another person. That would mean that two people both circled the same point, the hypersexualized orgies, I suppose, like the circles in a target. The DC suburban high schools for the well-off were more diverse than that. Probably AI wrote this latest book for CBF and she corrected "intersecting social circles" to "concentric social circles." That's about what one would expect from a Holton Arms girl from what I remember of them.
Just more bullshit in the ongoing war against truth.
How does a book reviewer determine that a memoir is "lucid," without having been there at the events described by the writer?
Everyone should remember that these books and book deals are just a way to reward political operatives who stir shit against Republicans the left wants to destroy.
No one actually reads the books. Money flows from organizations sympathetic to Dems to buy the works in bulk; the books are then destroyed. The Dems funnel money to the bulk buyers to compensate them for their expense.
The NYT then reports the books as best sellers.
This has been going on for thrty or mmore years. Just look at Dem. Jim Wright of Texas.
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-08-09-mn-136-story.html
I resent sick bitches and pricks profiting off real human tragedies and real denial of justice.
After 30 years of enduring it, I have entirely withdrawn from society. You can only take so much, and it's important to face the fact that all your efforts failed. I do like the company here.
By the way effinayright is correct, though in fairness, both sides do it. The rare Ann Counter can sell her own books, but most political books are mass purchased by leftist or Conservative Inc. and handed out for free.
Yes - the political publishing industry is a money laundering scheme.
So...is she mentally ill or dishonest? I remember when Althouse bought CBF's line and said Kavanaugh should fess up and throw himself on the mercy of the Senate or else withdraw because he probably did it. I stopped reading this blog for six months.
"So . . . is she mentally ill or dishonest?"
Embrace, you know the thing.
Easy lessons:
If you are in favor, no amount of evidence will get you convicted (not a shred of evidence Biden got money from foreign interests).
If you are out of favor you can be found guilty (at least in the press) for a ""rape" without details (Kavanaugh), fraud without victims (Trump) or just sued until you face financial ruin (Palin).
Only a fool thinks their lives are too unimportant to face this type of scrutiny.
If you haven’t learned by now book and Netflix deals are the transfer vehicle to get money to the people engaged in political activity. The greatest delight is when the taxpayers supply the money.
Post a Comment