Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsAn Injudicious Man, Unfit for the Supreme Court
This was a job interview, not a criminal trial. Kavanaugh, in his fury and pathos, failed the test.
By Roger Cohen
Opinion Columnist
What America saw before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an injudicious man, an angry brat veering from fury to sniveling sobs, a judge so bereft of composure and proportion that it was difficult not to squirm. Brett Kavanaugh actually got teary over keeping a calendar because thats what his dad did. His performance was right out of Norman Rockwell with a touch of Mad Men.
This is what you get from the unexamined life, a product of white male privilege so unadulterated that, until a couple of weeks ago, Kavanaugh never had to ask himself what might have lurked, and may still linger, behind the football, the basketball, the lifting weights, the workouts with a great high-school quarterback, the pro-golf tournaments with Dad, the rah-rah Renate-ribbing yearbook, the Yale fraternity, and the professed sexual abstinence until many years after high school.
Sometimes I had too many beers, Kavanaugh said. In some crowds, I was probably a little outwardly shy about my inexperience; tried to hide that, Kavanaugh also said. Christine Blasey Ford, his steady accuser, made a persuasive case that, in the summer of 1982, she paid the price for the teenage aggression and insecurity linking those two avowals.
Kavanaugh swears under oath that he never sexually assaulted anyone. To entertain even the possibility of it would be to dismantle the entire edifice of his holier-than-thou life. Hes the all-American jock, the model only child. For Gods sake, he contingently, and a little presumptuously, hired four female law clerks to work with him at the Supreme Court, the first (prospective) justice to have a group of all-women law clerks.
The words that resonate for me are the very words Kavanaugh used about his mother, Martha, the Maryland prosecutor and trial judge, whose trademark line was: Use your common sense. What rings true? What rings false?
more
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/28/opinion/kavanaugh-supreme-court-temperament.html
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
2 replies, 497 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (8)
ReplyReply to this post
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
An Injudicious Man, Unfit for the Supreme Court (Original Post)
DonViejo
Sep 2018
OP
angstlessk
(11,862 posts)1. Good article, and great comments.
Me.
(35,454 posts)2. "a group of all-women law clerks"
who were required to look like models if they wanted the job