Dallas Morning News columnist Peggy Wehmeyer was fully prepared last week to dismiss allegations made against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh -- but then she watched Christine Blasey Ford's testimony.
In her column posted on Tuesday, Wehmeyer explains how Ford's testimony hit her like a gut punch and that she came away from it believing that there was no way that she was just making up a story for partisan gain.
"As soon as Blasey began to describe her high school encounter with Brett Kavanaugh, clearly vulnerable and voice trembling, I knew she was sincere," she writes. "I knew it because I've been to those parties. I know those stories. The details were credible and she delivered them with raw emotional force."
She then goes on to recount her own experience in college, when she says she was taken advantage of by an older student who got her drunk and then tried to force himself on her after other people have left the party.
While the man did listen to Wehmeyer's pleas and eventually took her home, she says that she remembers blaming herself for putting herself in such a situation. Looking back, however, she thinks that her date that night was the one who bore chief responsibility for how he treated her.
"My guess is that both Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh are telling their truths about that night as best they remember," she writes in her conclusion. "Until last week's hearings, I was rooting for Kavanaugh. There was a lot I liked about him. But Blasey's testimony has cast new light on my experiences as a young woman. And if it's determined her story is true, I'll wonder whether Brett Kavanaugh is the kind of justice I can count on to make the world a little safer for girls like my granddaughter."
