A couple of decades ago, a wise person told me that any adult who had never done anything irresponsible with their clothes off probably never had the opportunity.
I'm paraphrasing that; I don't remember it verbatim or even whether it was said in conversation or in an email. I can only guess at the precise phrasing. But I can't be certain, because two decades is a long time and memories do funny things sometimes.
For instance, I remember some impossible things, like seeing Stan Musial's plaque in the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1963, when Musial wasn't inducted into the Hall until six years later. (When my family visited Cooperstown, N.Y., where the Hall of Fame is located, Musial was playing his final season for the St. Louis Cardinals.) I once made up a Norman Mailer quote -- only a scrupulous fact-checker kept it from making it into print.
Memory is strange. And that strangeness is compounded by the fact we don't know what we don't know and we'd prefer not to investigate ideas that soothe and comfort us. Most of us probably understand that our interior narrator is unreliable and that we prefer nostalgia to history, but our memories feel real enough to us that we present them with certitude. This is how it was because we remember it. You don't question that until you run up against some incontrovertible proof that your memories are confabulations.
Anyway, when my friend said whatever memorable thing that I can't quite remember, we were talking about Bill Clinton, a guy who more than likely had plenty of opportunity to do stupid things with his clothes off. My friend was more forgiving of Clinton than I was then, maybe because I was younger and still capable of getting angry when people disappointed me.
I thought that Clinton's fooling around with Monica Lewinsky was indicative of something very wrong with him--something for which he needed to seek help. Sure, it was consensual and all, but he was president of the United States and she was a young woman who couldn't help but be enthralled by any attention he paid her.
When I think about Bill Clinton, what I usually remember are those words that Greil Marcus wrote about Rod Stewart: "Rarely has a singer had as full and unique a talent as Rod Stewart; rarely has anyone betrayed his talent so completely."
Because Bill Clinton was special, and he betrayed that specialness. I think there was something needy and male in him that ate away at what he could have been.
And people will point and hoot and say I'm nuts, because just look at what Bill Clinton accomplished. Just look at how rich and how powerful he is and how untouchable he has become. He belongs to history now; any mortal attempts to engage or understand his meaning or judge him have been rendered moot.
In the past couple of weeks, I've heard and read some remarkable things. A guy who self-identifies as a "conservative writer" took to Twitter to say that he was sexually humiliated by guys while he was in high school and that if any of them were nominated to the Supreme Court he'd keep silent about it. That it wouldn't be fair to bring up their past behavior "[b]ecause they were boys."
He's the most extreme case I've seen of people suggesting that what Christine Blasey Ford alleges happened to her in 1983 wasn't beyond the pale but just what teenage boys do. That's not how I remember it. My high school buddies and I weren't especially meritorious--only one of us was an Eagle Scout--but we never tried to make a girl do something she didn't want to do. There was no door-locking or double-teaming or mickey-slipping.
I think we have to be realistic here. Adolescent boys don't always think straight even when they're not impaired. And we're all susceptible to making mistakes. But sometimes we have to pay for those mistakes. Even if we made them when we were 16 or 17 years old.
A lot of people in this country think that kids who commit serious offenses ought to be treated the same way we treat adults. I don't know whether they consider what Ford alleges happened to her a crime or not. Apparently some of them think it might have been "horseplay."
All I know is even though my friends and I never did anything like that, we heard about things like that happening. And we were appalled by them. We were disgusted by them. We didn't think that sort of thing was cool.
In fact, that's exactly what we'd have said about it: "That's not cool, man." I think I can remember saying that on a few occasions. I can distinctly remember having that conversation with a guy I knew when he was what some people might call "blackout" drunk.
Not everybody behaves like a pig or a deviant. Just as not everybody behaved like Bill Clinton back then. And not just because they didn't have the opportunity. Sometimes you just have to pass on your opportunities.
I don't know what Brett Kavanaugh did or didn't do. Maybe he doesn't either. I don't know whether he's even been blackout drunk.
But I do know this isn't a simple "he said/she said" situation that makes us throw up our hands and say it's impossible to know the truth. There's an alleged eyewitness to the incident, there's a therapist who can be interviewed. Kavanaugh was able to come up with 65 people who knew him in high school--it might be interesting and illuminating to talk to a few of them.
The only person looking at any criminal liability here is Ford: Lying to the FBI is a felony.
Sure, she might be mis-remembering; we all do that sometimes. But there are also things we remember with painful accuracy. Like where we were when those planes hit the tower, where we were when we heard about JFK or when our father died. Trauma has a way of piercing through the fog.
Someone is lying. I'd like to know who.
------------v------------
Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.
Editorial on 09/25/2018