Editorials of The Times

“America’s about fairness,” Brett Kavanaugh said Monday night in an interview with Fox News. “I want a fair process where I can defend my integrity and clear my name as quickly as I can.”

Surely there can be no question that America should be about fairness. Yet only a person accustomed to having things go his way in America would assume that it already is.

It’s a horrific unfairness, for example, that for generations, untold numbers of American girls and women have had their lives “derailed” by sexual abuse, to use the term of one of Kavanaugh’s accusers, Christine Blasey Ford, while the boys and men who abused them — maturing, telling themselves they’ve set aside boyish ways, eliding, avoiding, forgetting — chugged along toward successful careers and public acclaim.

It would also be unfair if Kavanaugh is innocent of such abuse, if he is a thoroughly honest and decent man, and yet is ultimately denied a seat on the Supreme Court because of the allegations against him.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is not a court of law, and the public can’t expect its members to reach an irrefutable conclusion about what happened. Yet it is now up to these senators, who have so far been putting political calculation well ahead of the interests of justice, to give a nation in tumult over these charges the demonstration of higher purpose and moral seriousness it so desperately needs. If Kavanaugh’s name is, in the end, to be cleared, the only path is through a thorough and fair investigation of the allegations against him.

The committee’s 11 Republicans — all of them men — are still refusing to call for an independent investigation, or even to subpoena Mark Judge, Kavanaugh’s high-school friend and allegedly a witness to the sexual assault of Blasey. So it’s left to those who care about getting the full story to ask as many questions as possible. Here are a few for Kavanaugh, drawn only from the allegations that have arisen in the weeks since his initial confirmation hearings. Perhaps the Republican senators can get the lawyer whom Mitch McConnell has called their “female assistant” to ask them.

— Blasey alleges that you sexually assaulted her in a locked room at a house party in the summer of 1982, when you were 17 and she was 15. She alleges that you were “stumbling drunk” and that she feared for her life. Could she be right about any of this?

— Blasey alleges that Judge was in the room with you and her on the night of the alleged attack. He has said he has “no recollection” of that incident, or of any similar behavior during that time. Elizabeth Rasor, Judge’s former girlfriend, disputes this. She said he “told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman” and that he “seemed to regard it as fully consensual.” Do you have any knowledge of an incident like the one she describes?

— Last week, Edward Whelan, a conservative activist who has been closely involved with the Supreme Court nominations by previous Republican presidents, spread a theory on Twitter that Blasey was telling the truth about being attacked, but that she was mistaken about the identity of her attacker, who he suggested might have been one of your classmates. Sen. Orrin Hatch said previously that you had proposed a similar theory to him. Did you have any role in developing Whelan’s theory? Did you have advance knowledge about his plan to go public with it?

— A classmate of yours at Yale, Deborah Ramirez, has alleged that you exposed yourself to her at a drunken dormitory party, thrust your penis in her face and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed you away. Is any element of this true?

— James Roche, who was a college roommate of yours during the time of the alleged incident involving Ramirez, has said that you were “frequently, incoherently drunk” and that you became “aggressive and even belligerent” at these times. Could this be true?

— Your high-school yearbook page includes the phrase “100 Kegs or Bust.” Your friend Judge has described that as a pledge to drink 100 kegs of beer before graduation. Was that your understanding? If not, what did you mean by it?

— Judge has written extensively of his heavy drinking during those years. In his memoir about being a teenage alcoholic, he wrote that he “drank too much and did stupid things.” He added, “Most of the time everyone, including the girls, was drunk.” His yearbook page includes the quote, “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.” The memoir included a character, “Bart O’Kavanaugh,” who drank so much that he threw up in a car and passed out. Was that you, and could he be correct in his description of those events?

— You told Fox News that you have “always treated women with dignity and respect.” Do you stand categorically by that statement?

— Your high-school yearbook page includes the phrase “Renate Alumnius.” A classmate of yours, Sean Hagan, explained that Renate was a girl at a nearby high school, and the reference to her by you and others on the school’s football team was meant as a boast of sexual conquest. Is that what you meant by the phrase? Do you believe this is treating women with dignity and respect?

— At Yale, you were a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, which was reputed to disrespect women. One of your female classmates recalled that DKE brothers ransacked women’s rooms, stole their undergarments and wove them into a large flag. Years later, the fraternity was suspended from campus after a video showed recruits chanting, “No Means Yes, Yes Means Anal.” Were you aware of any behavior like this? If so, do you believe it amounts to treating women with dignity and respect?

— Also at Yale, you belonged to an all-male secret society called Truth and Courage, which was known by the nickname “Tit and Clit.” Were you aware of this nickname? If so, do you believe it treats women with dignity and respect?

— More broadly, do you dispute the reputations of these groups? If you do not, did you ever feel uncomfortable about being involved with them, or raise any concerns with other members or leadership?

— One other matter: In your nationally televised acceptance of President Donald Trump’s nomination of you to the Supreme Court, you said, “No president has ever consulted more widely or talked with more people from more backgrounds to seek input about a Supreme Court nomination.” Would you provide the committee with the evidence for that assertion? And do you still stand by it?

Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency claiming “the world is laughing at us.” Now it really is laughing — at him.

Apparently mistaking the United Nations General Assembly for a campaign stop on Tuesday, Trump opened his annual address — usually a somber occasion for a president to assess the state of the world — by boasting that his administration “has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.”

That’s when the other world leaders started chuckling.

“Didn’t expect that reaction,” Trump said, like a comic in a roomful of hecklers, “but that’s OK.”

Actually, it’s not OK. America’s president is now openly derided in the most important international forum.

In last year’s U.N. address, Trump introduced the themes of American sovereignty and national identity (and vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea). This year, he offered a more ornate statement of his atavistic if still rather incoherent agenda.

“Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on earth,” the president said. “That is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control and domination.”

He added: “The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship. We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.”

Just what the president meant by “global governance” is unclear. But he seemed intent on conjuring up the phony black helicopter vision of international institutions as an “unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy” intent on erasing borders and eliminating national governments.

“We reject the ideology of globalism,” Trump said, “and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”

Trump said the United Nations had some potential for good, and he implicitly recognized that, for all his bluster, the United States could not really hope to go it alone in an era of transnational threats, when he thanked South Korea, China and Japan for working with the United States to reduce the danger of a nuclear North Korea. But he reaffirmed his decisions to withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council and cut cooperation with the International Criminal Court, castigating it as having “no jurisdiction, no legitimacy and no authority.”

The president seemed to have no understanding that the bodies he criticized, including the World Trade Organization, are part of a post-World War II system established by the United States and its allies and that America still has considerable influence to effect reforms, provided its leaders are committed enough to try.

Trump was quite explicit in his view of foreign assistance as a reward for good behavior and for personal loyalty. “Moving forward,” he said, “we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends.”

There was no acknowledgment that foreign aid has been used as a strategic tool to protect American security interests by fighting terrorism, advancing democracy, eradicating disease, promoting trade and cultivating allies.

For Trump, it’s all about the quid pro quo and the political message to his domestic audience.

Three years after Russia’s drug-testing agency was banned over one of the largest and most egregious state-sponsored doping schemes in the history of sport, it’s back in business, authorized by the World Anti-Doping Agency to certify that the same Russian athletes it so recently helped cheat are clean. It’s hard to know where to start on how outrageous that is.

After negotiating with the Russians over the summer, WADA announced last Thursday that it was, in effect, lifting its major conditions for Russia’s reinstatement — a full admission of the cheating and access to its stored urine samples — in exchange for a pledge to grant access to those samples by year’s end.

Faced with a deluge of outrage, much of it from athletes, WADA’s president, Craig Reedie, claimed this was the best way to get access to the samples WADA says it needs to complete its investigation into Russian doping. “My question to athletes is: What, in practice, is the alternative action to all the statements you have made?” he asked in a conference call with reporters on Monday.

Well, Sir Craig, let’s start with this alternative: Maintain the suspension until Russia fully acknowledges the government’s central role in the widespread cheating that was first laid bare by the former head of the Russian testing lab, Grigory Rodchenkov, and then confirmed in a report commissioned by WADA.

That report, by Richard McLaren, a Canadian law professor, inculpated Russia’s government sports organizations and the Russian Federal Security Service in an incredible scheme at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi to swap dirty urine samples for clean ones through a hole in the testing lab wall. That in turn led to the suspension of the Russian drug-testing agency, Rusada (Motto: “For Clean and Fair Sport!”), and a host of individual sanctions by various sports federations. At the 2018 Winter Games, in South Korea, Russian athletes cleared to participate did so as “Olympic Athletes From Russia,” without their national flag.

WADA’s main demand for a lifting of the suspension was contrition. Yet instead of insisting that Russia acknowledge the findings of the McLaren report, WADA let it accept the conclusions of a far milder report.

Reedie argued that he ran out of levers to get access to the Russian lab, and that at least now Russians have made a solid commitment. But wasn’t suspending Rusada the lever? And was the primary goal of the suspension access to the Moscow laboratory, as Reedie now suggests, or was it that Russia come clean?

In any case, WADA and the International Olympic Committee are now back in their familiar posture, defending against furious athletes and critics. Travis Tygart, the head of the American anti-doping organization, said the decision “stinks to high heaven.” Beckie Scott, a retired Canadian Olympian, called it “a devastating blow to clean sport.” Rodchenkov, who lives in hiding, called it “the greatest treachery against clean athletes in Olympic history.”

It’s not certain that the fury will have any effect. WADA and the IOC, of which Reedie is a member and which foots half of WADA’s budget, have a long record of closing their eyes to the misdeeds of powerful sports nations. They seem not to understand that condoning Russia’s cheating does irreparable damage to international sport.

WADA must promptly explain how it came to the decision to reinstate Russia and how it will ensure that Russia abides by the new condition. To make sure Reedie understands, Congress might note that the U.S. government’s annual check to WADA is for $2.3 million.