INTEGRITY

I have behaved badly. If ever I were to sit today in the candidate's seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee and every detail of my past were to be subject to examination, I would soon be exposed as a reckless and shameless miscreant, wholly undeserving of seat on America's Supreme Court. I suspect there are few among us who would qualify if the unexpurgated truth of our lives as young people were known. We have all done things of which we should be deeply ashamed.

That said, if we wish to live a life of integrity today, we owe ourselves an honest accounting of those things we have done in the past. To be right with ourselves in the present, we must exorcise the ghosts that will continue to haunt us, whether consciously or unconsciously, absent our having confronted them without fear or prevarication. Our true happiness, if we can attain it, depends on our freedom from the damage they can wreak.

So should someone we have offended or wounded in the past show up in our lives and require us to account for our actions, we have no choice but to examine our conscience and, where necessary, make amends. Blunt, out-of-hand denials and counter-accusations or blaming of others suggest that we are not ready to acknowledge or take responsibility for our part in any past wrongdoing, and leave our integrity in doubt.

A man who receives the life-time honor of a seat on the Supreme Court of this country must be one of unquestionable integrity. If the current nominee proves unwilling to listen and respond with honesty to that which he is credibly accused of, even many years ago, his integrity is compromised and he has no claim to that seat.