Brett Kavanaugh may have sealed his own doom with this passage from his now infamous calendar of 1982. Rachel Mitchell had started to question him about this entry in her second round of five-minute questions, but after the break was heard from no more. Had the Republicans misjudged Mitchell, which conservative tweets suggested she had been too soft on Christine Ford? She may have been soft, but she was clearly making an effort to erode key parts of her testimony. Here she was using the same technique to probe Judge Kavanaugh's calendar of events. Lindsey Antebellum picked up on it, and when it came his turn took to the podium after the break, he delivered all the pent-up rage in the Republican Party for having their Supreme Court nominee questioned like this.
Charles Pierce in Esquire offers the best take I've read thus far on the political theater we saw yesterday. Here was a man drunk with power every bit as belligerent as described by Christine Ford and others who saw him in his inebriated moments from high school and college.
One of the few things we learned from the questioning of Judge Kavanaugh is that he can't hold his liquor. He claimed it was because of his weak constituency, he couldn't handle certain foods as well. This was obviously the same "Bart O'Kavanaugh" described by his friend Mark Judge who ralfed in the car on "Beach Week" in June. However, as the real Kavanaugh would tell it, his buddy had a propensity to exaggerate things. After all, they grew up on movies like Animal House, Caddyshack and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
Democrats tried to undermine Kavanaugh's story but they didn't really succeed. The closest was probably Sheldon Whitehouse, who went line by line through his 1983 Yearbook entry, asking what all the references meant. I let out a loud guffaw when Kavanaugh said that "boof" was a reference to farting. A cursory look at urban dictionary reveals no such description, and you will be surprised at the many variations, most of which are not very flattering, much less flatulent.
What emerged from this crude display of histrionics is a very angry federal judge, who does not like to be questioned, especially by Democrats, who he thinks are conspiring against him. He will do whatever it takes to protect his position and family. He is a man who is the very definition of "white male privilege" from adolescence to where he is now. He tries to claim he was like any kid, working construction and mowing lawns during the summer, but given his hectic athletic schedule it is doubtful he had time to mow any lawns other than his parents, and that the construction work was probably on a deck he helped build with his father.
It struck me as odd that he should tear up over the idea of a calendar coming from his father, who began one in 1978, according to Brett's testimony. I thought his father may have recently passed away, but there he was sitting right behind him, along with his attractive mother and wife. He teared up another time over his father as well, but can't recall exactly when.
His little story about his youngest daughter asking for them to pray for Mrs. Ford at dinner was priceless. A nugget that obviously hit the mark, as at least one Republican Senator referenced it. I imagine it went over very well in Magaland too, as did his entire introduction.
It was correspondingly tough and sensitive, rising and falling with each of his references, so many in fact that "fake news" will have a field day fact checking each and everyone of these references between now and Monday, when the Senate vote on his confirmation will most likely be held.
Another thing that struck me is how he went out of his way to surround himself with women. He even boastfully said that he has appointed more women to clerk positions than any other judge in history. The type of boast you would expect from Trump or Hugh Hefner, who liked to claim he was at the vanguard of the women's liberation movement in the 60s. This was a red flag, but just as oddly Democrats didn't pick up on it. Why exactly would he surround himself with so many women? Were there no available men? Or, did he just like having glamorous-looking women around his office, as a Yale professor told a young woman who wanted to clerk for Kavanaugh?
He seemed genuinely obsessed with women from childhood. How else to explain the 65 women who vouched for him in an open letter? One can understand this desire coming from someone who went to an all boys' private school, but how the hell did he meet so many girls at such a young age, being so shy as he described himself?
One possible place is the country club that Christine Ford described in her opening testimony. This club sounds like it came straight out of Caddyshack, the 1980 movie that Kavanaugh referenced. There were obviously plenty of mixers at this club and when the kids wanted to play they went to someone's nearby house to have a few brewskis, which Ford implied. The parents conveniently at the club.
In his introduction, Kavanaugh made it sound like he was too busy for these sorts of things, even in summer, as he was attending basketball camp, taking part in workouts with his friends and preparing for placement exams, and oh yes mowing lawns. Yet, when Ms. Mitchell started to question him on the events of July 1 he was obviously very uncomfortable relating them, and afterward asked for a break.
None of Kavanaugh's story holds up, yet the Republicans don't seem the least bit interested in getting to the bottom of it. They just want to get their man on the bench before the end of the month so that they can focus on the midterm elections in October. Mark Judge is obviously not a very reliable witness, whose "sworn testimony" turned out to be a six-sentence paragraph signed by his lawyer, which Sen. Blumenthal held up as exhibit A. The same went with PJ and Leland Ingham Keyser, who said she didn't remember that evening. Basically, it comes down to Kavanaugh v. Ford.
Kavanaugh and the Republicans were smart not to attack Ford, but rather present her as a person with a flawed memory. They didn't deny she was sexually assaulted, but rather insinuated that it took place somewhere else with someone else. In fact, two men have magically stepped forward to claim they were the ones who forced themselves on Christine Ford all those years ago. This is even more absurd than using Kavanaugh's calendar as a means to exonerate him, rather than have the FBI verify the events in question.
Yet, the judge said everything Republicans wanted to hear after Christine Ford's emotional testimony that had some of them questioning Kavanaugh's moral character during the lunch break. No need to worry in the end, as Sen. Kennedy made Kavanaugh swear on god and country that all these allegations were not true. All though, It looked to me that Sen. Kennedy had his doubts.
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