Why is President Donald Trump trying to appoint someone with a track record of drunkenness to the Supreme Court?
The nomination of Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court should not be a partisan divide. At this point, there is more than enough reason to go back to the drawing board. The judge should thank his lucky stars for his current job. He and the White House should withdraw his name from consideration. President Trump should pick a nominee who does not have a track record of alcohol trouble.
While public record in Maryland would show that I am a registered Democrat, and I make no secret of my political leanings as a citizen and voter, I am not taking my stand against this nominee based on partisanship. As a newspaper reader, I have no respect for the hysterically anti-Trump drivel I’ve been trying to sidestep for months now. One reason I have not weighed in against the hysteria more, aside from regrettable time constraints and constraints on other resources, is that I do not want to step on a future book project–a book on political philosophy that I plan, or hope, to write.
Right now, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has at least two serious and credible accusations against him. I for one believe the accusers named so far, Christine Blasey Ford and Deborah Ramirez. None of the questions or accusations or implied threats so far leveled against the accusers give me pause. Nobody like me is going to be called to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but if I were, I could address the main, predictable categories of push-back,
- the Why-didn’t-she-do-such-and-such question/s
- the Why-did-she-wait-until-now question/s
- the We-don’t-have-enough-evidence stance
I’m hoping nobody takes those tacks in tomorrow’s hearing–which I will be watching on video, in between other work as usual.
Aside from the sexual misconduct accusations, there is more than enough evidence in the public record already to show that the younger Brett Kavanaugh had a problem holding his liquor, as they used to say. The article in (my issue of) today’s WaPo is only one recent example. Multiple witnesses who know Kavanaugh and/or who knew him when have instanced his bouts of drinking. Like millions of other college kids, he drank a lot. Again like millions of other college kids, he drank too much. Comments from Kavanaugh himself indicate that he still drank heavily after getting into Yale Law.
Something more than just college drinking or college-age drinking went on, however. For one thing, Kavanaugh’s heavy drinking began in high school, and high-school excess drinking does at least as much harm as college excess drinking. Teens should not drink, because the teenage brain is still developing and cannot handle alcohol abuse. Kavanaugh’s high-school drinking at Georgetown Prep shows up in his own high school yearbook statements. It shows up in the writing of his longtime friend, Mark Judge, who has written frankly about his own alcohol addiction.
For another, he continued the heavy drinking for years, through high school, in college, and in law school. For another–unless you assume that every single person who saw him drinking is lying–then he is lying about the alcohol use or genuinely does not remember it. This is not a good sign. For real substance abusers, the lying becomes almost as compulsive as the drinking; and the lying can be abetted by genuine memory lapses brought on by the alcohol itself.
And for another thing, his personality changed when he drank. This is the real danger sign–even more of a danger sign than just drinking too much.
And on top of the drinking and the accusations of sexual misconduct, there are also the young Kavanaugh’s own words. That “Renate alumnius” ‘joke’, for example? This from the man who claimed on national television that he has always treated women with respect? (This is not the only such yearbook message from Kavanaugh, by the way; I’m choosing not to quote another.)
‘Trump’ is not the story here
If Judge Kavanaugh does end up getting confirmed to the highest court in the land, by the way–IF he does–it will be not only because of Republican intransigence but also because of some of the ham-handed unfairness in news media, not against Kavanaugh but against Trump. I have no interest whatsoever in the phalanx of hysterical commentators and even reporters who clearly just want to spend the next two or more years going TrumpTrumpTrump.
I am a freelance journalist myself, I have loved newspapers all my life–although I haven’t always loved the way they treated their printers–but it is only too obvious right now that some individuals in the news media think anything is okay, no holds barred, as long as it might damage President Trump. Some of these individuals are at the New York Times. There’s that ridiculous anonymous op-ed on September 5, purporting to come from some inner sanctum in the White House. –Heard anything about that lately, btw? There’s the equally ridiculous ‘news report’ August 24 purporting to show that Rod Rosenstein discussed removing Trump from office. Actually, NYTimes’ language itself suggests that this ‘story’ is not a leak, but a plant. If I worked at the Times, I’d be looking at McCabe. –Wonder how soon this furor will die–or has it died already?
When we as members of the informed electorate see an august newspaper getting away with this garbage, when we see over-secure and over-promoted journalists getting away with the abuses, and no one willing or able to call them on the abuses, the offenses give credence to sweeping attacks against the press. The sweeping attacks then become, of course, a way for the worst offenders to wrap themselves in the mantle of the First Amendment. Needless to say, I don’t see the U.S. press as “enemies of the people.” I’m part of the press myself, I’m a reader, and as said I love newspapers.
I’m also part of the people. So are the rest of the press. They’re not enemies of the people; they are people. That’s the clue. Line up the fundamentals as premises, make a syllogism out of them:
- All human beings are fallible
- All journalists are human beings
- Therefore, all journalists are fallible
The fallibility is a universal. But a universal is not a constant. Again, fundamentals, premises, chain of argument:
- A universal is not a constant
- That human beings do wrong is a universal
- That human beings do wrong is not a constant
We all do wrong things. That does not make us all equally wrong. (Et cetera.) If it did, there could be no justice system.
The fact that a few or several human beings at the New York Times did some very wrong things does not mean that all journalists do the same.
Back to alcohol abuse: people who abuse substances can go into recovery, genuine recovery. When they do, the signs are there–not just the sobriety itself, but the frank and accurate admission of the compulsion; the fulfillment of a program; and the willingness to take responsibility and to make amends.
I wouldn’t say that no recovering alcoholic should ever become a judge, or even a Supreme Court justice. But I would say that recovering is a prerequisite.
