Too
many young men drink to excess. When
they drink to excess, they often become boisterous. They engage in disorderly conduct. They utter and scream racial, ethnic, gender,
and other epithets. They vandalize and
destroy property. They drive drunk. They pick fights with each other and perfect
strangers. They assault women. They damage, ruin or destroy their lives and
the lives of their victims.
Most
of these young men mature. They learn
how to moderate their drinking or how to moderate their behavior when drinking. They become solid citizens, valuable employees,
respected professionals and community leaders.
They are faithful spouses and loving parents to their sons and daughters. The drunken escapades of their past become
little more than foggy romanticized memories. Until this week, the central
question raised by this pattern of behavior for many persons was how they should regard apparently distinguished and decent persons they remember as drunken frat boys (for the record, I am a lifelong oblivious teetotaler, who spent most weekend evenings in high school and college playing chess or bridge). For Americans today, this pattern of behavior is crucial to determining whether Brett Kavanaugh should sit on the Supreme Court.
The
practice of underage male drinking in the United States supports both Christine
Blasey Ford's and Mark Judge’s account of what happened at a drunken teenage bash
in North Bethesda thirty-five years ago.
As numerous accounts by women who attended all-girls schools in
Montgomery county attest, male sexual assaults on women during underage drinking
parties were and are unfortunately common. What Ms. Ford
claims happened to her happened to many women of her generation. Mark Judge’s claim that he has no recollection
of the events is also plausible.
Underage drinkers often cannot remember what they did the morning after
events take place much less thirty-five years later.
Brett Kavanaugh’s denials are far less believable. In previous speeches, he has acknowledged and
romanticized his past excessive drinking habits. Substantial evidence exists that Kavanaugh
was blind drunk at various points during his youth. If he can say with confidence that he never
assaulted Christine Blasey Ford, he may be the only adult male in the United
States who can remember with perfect clarity everything he did during repeated
bouts of drunkenness in the past. This is
hardly air-tight proof that the attempted rape occurred. The claim is only that Kavanaugh
cannot possible remember whether, during his apparently repeated bouts of drunkenness, he ever threw up in a car, broke a window, ran naked in the living room
or assaulted a woman. That Kavanaugh has
demonstrated, at the very least, a willingness to make very misleading self-serving
statements under oath casts further doubt on his veracity.
The
Kavanaugh nomination should go down because he has consistently put the needs
of the Republican Party before the Constitution and the country. The Kavanaugh nomination should go down because
Republicans have steadily refused to provide the country with the documents
needed to evaluate Kavanaugh’s past service in the Bush administration. The Kavanaugh nomination should go down
because even on the basis of the limited record Republicans have provided,
Kavanaugh lacks the integrity demanded of a Supreme Court justice. The Kavanaugh nomination should go down
because his claim to remember what happened when blind drunk is not credible.
The
Kavanaugh nomination should go down even if Kavanaugh was honest enough to
admit he has no memory of everything he did when blind drunk. For thirty-five years, Brett Kavanaugh has
romanticized his underage drinking, inspiring other ambitious young men to drink to
excess, confident that their behaviors will have little bearing on their
professional lives once as adults they moderate their drinking or moderate
their drinking behavior. If Kavanuagh
goes down, somewhere in North Bethesda or elsewhere, an ambitious young man might decide
not to attend an underage drinking party or to moderate his drinking behavior at
such affairs. One less neighbor may be
be woken up at three in the morning. One less racial
epithet may be uttered. One less window
may be broken. One less drunk driving accident
may occur. One less woman may be
sexually assaulted. One less drinker and
one less victim may have their lives not damaged, ruined or destroyed.