New York Magazine 10/1-10/14/18

1 In New York, Soon-Yi Previn, the wife of Woody Allen and the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, broke her silence three decades after being at the center of Allen and Farrow’s very public, acrimonious breakup (“Introducing Soon-Yi Previn,” September 17–30). In the story, written by Daphne Merkin, Previn talks about years of what she claims was mistreatment at the hands of Farrow, the inception of her own relationship with Allen, and her now 20-year marriage to the director. In the Guardian, Hadley Freeman wrote, “The first, and most obvious, thing to say is that Soon-Yi Previn has every right to tell her story, and any publication has the right to publish it … I admire Previn for finally speaking out after having been spoken about for so long. But…

‘‘I am terrified.’’ —DR. CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD On Thursday, September 27, Americans were witness to what was almost surely the most wrenching, emotional day of political history since Donald Trump was elected president. In the morning, heartrending testimony of sexual assault; in the afternoon, a howling jeremiad of partisan resentment. In theory, the hearing was designed to bring some resolution to two very divergent memories. But what it revealed instead was two different universes—one in which the victims of assault were cracking the system of predation and privilege that had so long targeted them, and another in which a left-wing conspiracy had abandoned all principle to score a partisan victory. It was also a simple two-act drama starring two magnetic principals begging to be analyzed, who seemed to contain…

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM called Christine Blasey Ford a “nice lady.” A nice lady is not a “nasty woman.” A nice lady gets up in the morning and curls her hair. A nice lady talks in a sweet voice. A nice lady sips from her bottle of Coke. A nice lady can’t find the best place to put her glasses. A nice lady makes sure her documents are laminated in case she cries. A nice lady studies her documents and makes corrections. A nice lady offers to “host” Senator Grassley in her house in California. A nice lady “quibbles” with her husband. A nice lady sits in her car in a Walgreens parking lot so her parents don’t have to hear that she is interviewing lawyers. A nice lady retreats so…

IMAGINE THAT A WOMAN accused of a crime shows up for a Senate hearing and mostly cries and shouts about how persecuted she feels. Imagine she loses her temper several times during her opening statement and refuses to answer yes-or-no questions. Imagine she evades follow-up questions by talking about how often she went to her friends’ houses and how good her grades were in high school and college. Now imagine that a black man is accused of a crime, but when he’s asked if he’d like there to be a further investigation to clear his name, he stammers, “I’m innocent!” and “They sprung it on me!” Imagine this man repeatedly states that he liked beer when he was younger and he still likes beer. “Do you like beer?” he interrupts…

‘‘You may defeat me in the final vote, but you’ll never get me to quit. Never.’’ —BRETT KAVANAUGH AS MAJORITY LEADER Mitch McConnell put it, the goal for his party was to “plow right through” the sexual-assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh—and by extension, the women making them—and confirm the guy already. “I don’t think we should put up with it, to be honest with you,” Senator Orrin Hatch complained on the eve of Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony before the Judiciary Committee. Or as Hatch blustered at Kavanaugh’s initial hearing, in response to a female protester who’d risen to shout about the life-and-death consequences should the Supreme Court repeal health-care reform, “We shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of stuff.” Until recently, the party had…

IN THE MORNING, his prospects suffered what felt like fatal damage by Christine Blasey Ford’s highly credible charge of attempted rape. By afternoon, Brett Kavanaugh’s show of raw partisan animosity had thrilled his patrons. “Judge Kavanaugh showed America exactly why I nominated him,” exulted Trump. “This was why he nominated him from the beginning,” Kellyanne Conway told Gabriel Sherman. Fox & Friends praised Kavanaugh’s “very Trumpian” opening remarks. Part of what made Kavanaugh’s speech very Trumpian was how it revealed what Trump accomplished in 2016: Both tapped deeply into the conservative soul, and in that soul is rage. Kavanaugh’s snarling, unhinged partisan rant ought to have been a disqualification but instead, somehow, became a qualification. He dispensed with any pretense of law as a neutral value. Everything was reduced to…