Kavanaugh wins, but at what price?
Kavanaugh wins, but at what price?

The morning belonged to Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser. America believed her, surely so among Democrats, and partly so even among some Republicans.

At this day of high drama, the afternoon belonged to Brett Kavanaugh. She cried over his guilt. He cried over his innocence. Americans had a full day to choose.

The guess here is that Kavanaugh came out ahead by a split decision. Democrats will never concede, but Kavanaugh did well enough to win the Senate’s approval.

He will sit on the Supreme Court – but by the slimmest of margins. So he did okay after Thursday’s grueling cross-examination.

He escaped the hanging that the Democrats had prepared for him, but he will always be a damaged man. This will endure.

There is no getting over something like this, weeks of leftist mudslinging, and here is a man who will never laugh again. Not once did he smile, even when Republicans on the Judiciary panel tried to boost him and lighten him up, and when Democrats kept to their grilling, his features darkened in contempt.

He turned grim, defiant, and even sarcastic – how else after these weeks of orchestrated character assassination?

Defiant was how he began. In no uncertain terms, he raged against the rotten politics and the dirty tricks that had turned his life into a nightmare.

Likewise, for his wife and daughters.

Later, though, he turned wobbly, if by stages. As the Democrats kept peppering him mercilessly, his energy withered away and his answers grew short and spiritless.

This was a beaten man. Is the Supreme Court worth this, any of this, he must have asked himself over the recent days -- and on Thursday, something else happened.

About midway through the hearing, he stopped caring. That’s what they did to him. This was so obvious through his demeanor and nights without sleep. The fight had gone out of him.

The Democrats did this to him. They did it to all of us.
He stopped caring because if this was politics and if these were the politicians, where does a man go to get his faith back? (Besides his good name.)  

As one light went out, another light came on, and as if for the first time, he saw the mean ingredients that go into the stew of American politics.

They took the starch out of him.

The Democrats did this to him. They did it to all of us.

Defeat was written all over him, even as he could probably tell that things, at this moment, at this hearing, were going his way.

But he just didn’t care. That’s the damage they did. That’s the hurt they do.

So, finally, this was a man who did not care either way, whether he made it to the Supreme Court or not.

This was a man so fed up, he just wanted to go home.

New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.

He is the author of the international book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal” and most recently the noir novel “Slot Attendant,” plus the two inside journalism thrillers “The Bathsheba Deadline” and “News Anchor Sweetheart, Hollywood Edition.” Engelhard is the recipient of the Ben Hecht Award for Literary Excellence. Website: www.jackengelhard.com