The White House
“No! No! No! I’m going to talk about my high school record if you’re going to sit here and mock me! . . . I played sports! I was captain of the varsity basketball team! . . . Let me finish!” Excerpt from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 27.
Christine Blasey Ford got choked up and had to compose herself a few times as she told her story to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday morning. “I thought that Brett was accidentally going to kill me,” she said, describing her memory of being sexually assaulted by Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court.
Blasey Ford delivered her testimony in a soft voice, acknowledging her fear, her ambivalence about coming forward, and her decision, despite all the reasons not to put herself in the spotlight, that it was her “civic duty” to speak out.
Then it was Brett Kavanaugh’s turn. During the break, after what both sides described as Blasey Ford’s believable and highly sympathetic performance, it seemed like the country might be on the verge of a moment of truth.
What if Kavanaugh acknowledged what so many of the Senators, journalists, and Washington insiders watching the hearings were thinking: that the scene Blasey Ford described—entitled prep school boys engaging in drunken, violent behavior—is a common concern for the parents among the Washington, D.C., elite? That after years of news stories about rape and hazing and out-of-control drinking and drug use, there is, finally, a consensus that the toxic boys’ prep-school culture has to change?
It was possible to speculate, after watching Blasey Ford, that Kavanaugh might withdraw under the pressure of her utterly credible testimony. But even if he did not, he could acknowledge that what she described can and does happen, declare that it is unacceptable, and pledge to do his part to end misogynist violence against women.
Nope.
Kavanaugh came in, eyes blazing, to give his opening statement. Outraged, confrontational, and full of righteous indignation he yelled, hectored, and, incredibly, broke down and cried repeatedly—many more times than his accuser did as she described the attack, and the laughter of the boys who tormented and terrified her. For Kavanaugh, the true villains were the Democrats, the Clintons, and “leftwing opposition groups.” And the true tragedy was that, after a lifetime of entitlement and his stellar record at the nation’s most elite schools, the Supreme Court seat to which he clearly feels he is entitled might be slipping away.
The hearing was “a national disgrace.” Senate Democrats had “replaced advise and consent with search and destroy.”
“Thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to teach again!” Kavanaugh said, his face twisting with rage. “Thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again!”
He alternated between yelling and screaming and sniffing loudly, occasionally stifling a sob.
The man who previously appeared so calm and judicial, so committed to a fair and nuanced reading of the law, looked completely unhinged.
The man who, in his first hearing, appeared so calm and judicial, so committed to a fair and nuanced reading of the law, such a nice dad and coach to little girls, looked completely unhinged.
In answer to allegations by high school friends and college classmates that Kavanaugh was a habitual, belligerent drunk, Kavanaugh explained, in one colloquy:
“Yes, we drank beer. I liked beer. Still like beer. We drank beer.”
Well, at least he was clear on that point.
Kavanaugh also engaged several Senators on the topic of their drinking habits.
“Do you like beer, Senator, or not?” he demanded of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. “What do you like to drink? Senator, what do you like to drink?”
“You’re asking about blackout,” he said, interrupting Senator Amy Klobuchar, when she asked if he had ever had so much to drink that he couldn’t remember what happened. “I don’t know, have you?” he shot back at Klobuchar, a teetotaler and the child of an alcoholic.
“Could you answer the question, judge?” Klobuchar said.
“Yeah, and I’m curious if you have,” he continued.
“I have no drinking problem, judge,” Senator Klobuchar replied. “Yeah, nor do I!” Kavanaugh shot back.
Like an alcoholic reacting badly during an intervention, Kavanaugh stuck with denial throughout the hearing.
After a break, he appeared to get ahold of himself and dialed back the weeping and rage. He apologized to Klobuchar for his bullying questions.
CNN, which livened up the breaks in testimony with rotating panels of experts, pointed out how awkward it was to watch the all-male Republican panel remain silent during Blasey Ford’s testimony, waiting, after their names were called out, for the woman prosecutor they hired, Rachel Mitchell, to ask all the questions.
But after Kavanaugh came out, and the Republicans suddenly and unceremoniously pushed aside Mitchell and began making their own outraged speeches, CNN changed tacks. Kavanaugh’s testimony was “emotional” but “highly effective” several panelists declared. Reporters with Republican sources reported that Donald Trump was delighted with the way Kavanaugh had come out swinging.
The journalists and the Republican guests quickly set up a dangerous parallel, which hardened into conventional wisdom among nearly all the panelists: both Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford were victims. Both had suffered terribly in the process. Both came off as sympathetic and believable.
My guess is CNN wants to shore up its reputation as a neutral, objective news outlet. The Republicans, obviously, have their own agenda.
But a thorough FBI investigation and testimony from all the other witnesses (Senate Republicans finally agreed to allow a narrow, one-week FBI investigation this week) could hardly have painted a more vivid picture of the enraged, entitled sociopath Trump chose for the Court than Kavanaugh himself presented at the hearing.
“No! No! No!” he shouted over Senator Patrick Leahy, who tried to interrupt him as he was rehashing his past triumphs as an honor student and varsity athlete at Georgetown Prep. “I’m going to talk about my high school record if you’re going to sit here and mock me! . . . I played sports! I was captain of the varsity basketball team! . . . Let me finish!”
So much for judicial temperament. Kavanaugh’s self-pity, and sneering, contemptuous treatment of members of the U.S. Senate unmasked him.
No one—certainly not Blasey Ford, nor Kavanaugh’s other accusers, nor women, as a group, who have been victims of sexual assault—deserves as much sympathy, in Kavanaugh’s mind, as Kavanaugh.
Except, perhaps, Kavanaugh’s old running buddy Mark Judge. Leahy asked Kavanaugh if he was the model for the puking-drunk character “Bart O’Kavanaugh” in Judge’s memoir Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk. Kavanaugh didn’t answer. But he scolded Leahy for asking the question: “We can sit here and make fun of some guy who has an addiction.”
Pity those privileged prep school boys. How they suffer at the hands of an unsympathetic culture!
It was fascinating to see how much leeway Kavanaugh expects, for his underage drinking, his misogynist yearbook quotes, and the whole bullying, entitled culture of which he is a product.
Clearly that culture, and its defenders, are not dead yet.
As Kavanaugh talked about his high school days, he seemed to regress, at times sounding like a petulant teenager, and rhapsodizing about Georgetown Prep, the football team, and the days when he “worked out with other guys at Tobin’s house” (the star quarterback) and “talked about football . . . and girls.”
Yeesh.
Aggrieved white male entitlement still has legs as a political strategy for the Republicans. But how far does that go?
Trump, and some of the dinosaurs on the Judiciary Committee may share Kavanaugh’s fondness for that good old boys’ scene. Even the Republicans who find the whole thing a bit creepy may be willing to stomach Kavanaugh. After all, they can stomach Trump. Aggrieved white male entitlement still has legs as a political strategy for the Republicans. But it only goes so far. Just how far is exactly what certain swing voters in the Senate are right now trying to figure out.
Whether or not Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski decide to knuckle under and vote with the bullies, or take a stand for women, the integrity of the Court, and common decency, it’s high time to throw out the crying drunks. Bring on the Year of the Woman.
This story was updated on September 29 to reflect the Senate Republicans decision to pursue an FBI investigation into Ford's allegations.
Ruth Conniff is The Progressive’s editor-at-large