He thinks of it as a minor transgression
I haven’t finished yet.
There’s the bit where Whitehouse asked Kavanaugh about the cutesie stuff on his yearbook page, starting with “the Ralph club.” “Ralph” is slang for vomit, barf, hurl, puke. Kavanaugh said so but immediately followed that with drivel about having a weak stomach. Here’s the thing: if you vomit a lot because you have a “weak stomach” (whatever that is) then you probably don’t boast about being in the Ralph club in your yearbook. Vomiting a lot is not cute or macho if it’s a medical problem, it’s only cute and macho if you do it because you’ve poured a lot of alcohol down your throat. So that was, you know, one of his many casual lies under oath, told to make himself look better.
Then Whitehouse asks about the Ralph club all over again, and Kavanaugh gets hostile and asks him what he likes to drink. Whitehouse ignores that rude entitled question and asks about “boofing”; that’s when Kavanaugh tells the lie about flatulence.
Nate Silver prompted some thoughts.
p.s. He could be *genuinely* indignant even if he did it—he thinks of it as a minor, routine-for-its-era, boys-will-be-boys transgression amid a lifetime of high achievement and he can't *believe* it's been dredged up out of nowhere when he's inches away from the finish line.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 29, 2018
Indeed. And if he does think of it that way, what does that tell us? That he can't feel empathy for a mere woman EVEN WHEN he has just seen her painfully spill her guts about what he did to her and how she felt about it. https://t.co/pU22AuC9hs
— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) September 29, 2018
A decent human being in that situation would listen to her testimony and be horrified, appalled, stricken about what he'd done to her.
There wasn't a trace of that in Kavanaugh's tantrum. Not a whisper. His pain and rage were all for his precious self. https://t.co/pU22AuC9hs
— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) September 29, 2018
"Boys will be boys" but at the same time boys are NOT supposed to bully. He is two years older, and he was a burly heavy football player. However frisky he may have been feeling, the weight of his hand over her mouth made her fear she would die. He should care about that. https://t.co/pU22AuC9hs
— Ophelia Benson (@OpheliaBenson) September 29, 2018
All that is undercut by the fact that he (according to him) didn’t watch her testimony, which I’d forgotten.
Except for the part about bullying. Even if he is such a stunted smug entitled shit that he sees everyone outside his personal circle as insignificant…he still ought to know and ought to have known then that a big muscley senior boy pinning down a sophomore girl and stifling her when she tries to scream is a bad thing to do.
I wonder if he was cruel to animals.
In appreciation of your indefatigable and energetic attempts to promote the cause of truth and humanity. I shall hope you are never finished until there is no longer any need for the exposure of misogyny, entitlement, and sheer assholery.
This is my guess. He knows he did it, he just thinks it was no big deal and he’s furious that people are making such a big deal about it. How dare they.
BTW, O, last night I linked to your post “The patriarchy testing the limits” while arguing with a man who was very concerned about Kavanaugh being denied the appointment due to “uncorroborated accusation.”
It was a long, but civil, conversation. He seemed like a nice man. It took a while to get him to see that this proceeding is not a criminal trial, that Kavanaugh is not owed a presumption of innocence, that testimony under oath is evidence, and all the rest of it. These are common confusions.
He actually listened, and acknowledged my points. Finally I gave him your piece and suggested he read it, comments included, if he was interested in some women’s reactions to Kavanaugh’s testimony. He told me he read it, was thinking about it, and would continue to think about it.
So, what iknklast said.
Allow me to echo iknklast’s words. Thank you for wading through all this damn muck.
For me, Kavanaugh’s tantrums just convinced me further of his guilt. A decent man, a man with some measure of thought and sympathy and sense of duty, even sure that he is innocent, would say something along the lines of, “I believe that Dr. Ford was subject to an appalling act of sexual assault. It is terrible what she has been subjected to recently in public, and I implore all Americans to regard her with respect. However, I can’t say that I committed that terrible act. I know I did not. I almost wish I could say I had, so that the truth would be known. But now, in the interests of this country which I love, and which I wish to continue to serve, I have decided to ask President Trump to withdraw my nomination to this country’s highest court. The spectacle that my fellow citizens have witnessed is unbecoming of this Senate and of our Republic. Thank you all for your consideration of my nomination, and may God continue to bless the United States of America and grant wisdom to our leaders.” Yeah, it’s tacky and grandiose, but it’s also standard political speech when someone is trying to do the right thing. Kavanaugh is, of course, incapable of a sense of duty except to his own privilege.
Aw, thanks, all.
I wonder if in fact Kavanaugh could say “I can’t say that I committed that terrible act. I know I did not.” without lying. I wonder if he really does think he knows that…or if in fact he’s well aware that it’s quite likely he did.
Any bets? My bet is option number 2. He’s a blackout drunk, but he likely has a general idea of what his behavior was like as a teenager. One of his roommates at Yale says he and his friends were the very worst kind of obnoxious drunken frat boys.
To Ms. Benson @ 4:
That’s just it. Another version of what I wrote could be, “Though I believe, to the depths of my soul, that I did not commit this heinous act, I can’t say with absolutely certainty that I did not. This is due to the long time since that terrible day for Dr. Ford, and the fact that, as a teenager, there were times when I drank alcohol to the point of forgetfulness. Alcohol consumption is, of course, no excuse for behavior. I grew up, however, and learned to control my use of alcohol – I now have the occasional glass of wine or beer for pleasure, but my service on the court makes me abstain more than not. Yet if this tale of a woman’s suffering were to call into question the soundness or neutrality of any decision I made as a justice on the Supreme Court, that is a line no judge ought to cross. In saying that, senators, I mean that I will not accept a position on that Court if confirmed, and I ask that my nomination be withdrawn.” Still self-serving and pompous, but a way for him to walk away to 7-figure book contracts.
Whenever an entitled mediocrity gets challenged, the (always thin) veneer of civility immediately sloughs off and the poop-flinging that ensues would make a baboon blush. The Rethuglican mouthfoaming during Thursday’s hearing was a quintessential exhibit of this.
clamboy @ 5 – we can dream.
There’s a terrible paradox in so many drunk’s rationalization. One one hand, blacking out is furiously denied, or consistently misidentified with passing out. And then, with no noticeable shift of gears, failure of memory is invoked when the accusations get too close.
I can report subjectively that accumulated black-out episodes can be conflated with even more frequent ‘brown outs’ to make a false narrative that gets rehearsed into near certainty.