Yes, there were parties, and yes, the drinking age was 18," Kavanaugh told the Fox host Martha MacCallum. “And yes, the seniors were legal and had beer there. And yes, people might have had too many beers on occasion. And people generally in high school — I think all of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit.”
But Maryland’s minimum legal drinking age for beer and wine was changed to 21 from 18 in July 1982, during the summer before Kavanaugh’s senior year. It was already 21 for hard liquor.
Residents who had turned 18 by that time were grandfathered in and allowed to drink legally. Kavanaugh was 17 at the time.
In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act made the minimum legal drinking age 21 nationwide."
Nevertheless, the Pubbies will ram this through, won’t they; consequences be damned. I know a lot of folks think that the nomination will be pulled, but I don’t think that will happen. Trump won’t do it because he hates to lose and would rather destroy the long term integrity of the SCOTUS rather than lose. Kavanaughty won’t back out himself, because that would essentialy admit he did these things and end his career. His current job would be in high jeopardy. That leaves the Judiciary committee and they are chained by their own hubris and scared of the base. I think this goes to the end.
Yeah, there’s no climbing out of this hole. As soon as he tries something more nuanced, like, “Well, yes, I did attend some parties at which people had too much to drink, and some people behaved inappropriately, but I never did either,” he’s toast. He’s got no choice but to stick to the full, choirboy denial. As long as no one has home movies, they’ll never get him on perjury, and he knows it (not many convictions for perjury, for good reason - it’s a tough charge to make stick).
ETA: He can get away with that approach on a softball FoxNews interview, but if he tries it with the Senate Committee, the followup questions promise to be a wonder to behold. “Judge Kavanaugh, please tell us about the parties you did attend at which people had too much to drink. Precisely what sorts of inappropriate behavior did you witness.” A bottomless pit.
You’d think so. I noticed that in a couple of places on that calendar he purports proves his complete innocence in all matters, there are a few places where he indicates he was “grounded” while friends (including what appears to be his girlfriend) went on with their regular activities without him. He doesn’t say what his infractions were, but I don’t recall having to ground my own son (who is almost 53 now) after he reached high school age.
My kid wasn’t an angel, but grounding him a couple of times in middle school seems to have made him figure out that he didn’t have as much fun sitting in his room while his friends went out without him. That it happened to Kavanaugh several times over one summer when he was 16 or 17 indicates that he was either a slow learner, unable to control his impulses to do crap his parents told him was not okay, unable to hide whatever his infractions were, or just plain incorrigible. He doesn’t seem to have improved since high school.
edit to add: My kid didn’t get grounded for drinking. The dog ratted him out by barking when he got home. Dad got him up bright and early the next morning with an assignment to do a LOT of yardwork before going anywhere. The boy didn’t come home with makings of a hangover again.
Because they really don’t want to know the answers – that would be politically inconvenient. And the best way to avoid the answers is not to ask the questions in the first place.
Kavanaugh is sounding to me like he has a personality disorder. I’d hazard a guess that it is covert narcissistic personality disorder. The drinking and belligerence certainly fit right in. More telling are three other interconnected features:
Comfortably lying at the drop of a hat – a capacity he displayed during the confirmation hearings, and continues to display;
Complete inability to acknowledge any mistakes he made or bad behavior he engaged in; and
The “really really good person” identity he persistently and even aggressively pushes. Why, he’s practically a saint, he’ll have you know, and is outraged, outraged!, that someone would impugn his good character.
I’ve seen all this before. It’s a bit weird when you first encounter it in real life, vs. reading descriptive text on a page. It is not easy to wrap ones mind around the reality of what a personality disorder actually is. He makes a contrast with Trump, who is of the more well known overt variety of narcissist – though in his case also likely malignant.
One feature of covert narcissists is that they are very good at fooling many people about what a really really good person they are. Kavanaugh is no exception. Covert NPD is a developmental disorder, starting when the person is a toddler or earlier. They are almost guaranteed never to recover.
Some people are just no good. Those cruelly mean preppie types always struck me as close to irredeemable. It was impossible to imagine them becoming thoughtful, caring people, and I’ve certainly never seen it happen.
The excuses are coming for sure: affluenza, the stress of being an over-achiever, Luther Vandross on the stereo. It was a world stacked against BK’s virtue.
This doesn’t end with admitting horrors happened and BK was part of it. Then comes the part where “It’s tragic but it’s OK because Risky Business was a popular movie about rich white boys having a for-profit sex party back then.” Brace yourself.
@xpurg8d@mattinpa In fairness to Kavanaugh, he clerked for a Circuit Judge who got away with it for decades. So, he was obviously entrapped.
Ok, FOX News one night to claim he was a Virgin, who only cared about service to others, athletics, Mass on Sunday, and his friends. Next AM, the fucking wretched Grassley-Graham-Hatch Judiciary Committee has him testifying in closed session with NO prior public notice? I guess they thought it would help them in their Friday AM committee vote. Scumbags.
