CommentsCHOICES--In his opening statement at his confirmation hearing, "calculated liar, "evidently repeat perjurer and alleged sexual assaulter Brett Kavanaugh cited his time at Bethesda’s Georgetown Prep high school in the 1980s with reverence.
“The motto of my Jesuit high school was ‘Men for others,’ he intoned, nobly adding, "I’ve tried to live that creed.” Uh huh. (photo above, Judge guzzles beer center, second row at an 80’s party.)
Alas, growing evidence - thanks, hard-working enemies of the people - says otherwise. Along with Kavanaugh's longtime, malleable relationship with the truth, his reportedly dubious finances, and the clear and present danger he poses to women's rights, Kavanaugh's choice of friends likewise raises to one critic "the question of his integrity and character and fitness."
Enter Mark Judge, Kavanaugh's high school best bud and alleged fellow assaulter of Dr. Christine Ford, who oddly has already said, through his lawyer, he does not wish to testify at upcoming hearings.
Again, thanks to extensive media sleuthing -here, here, here and elsewhere - we now know that Judge was a teenage alcoholic who grew up to be a racist, homophobic, writer for right-wing rags perhaps best known for his stone-age attitude towards women and sexual assault; it is most memorably reflected in the lofty quote he chose for his high school yearbook: “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.”
In his 1997 memoir, Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk and a 2005 book, God and Man at Georgetown Prep (now out of print), Judge portrayed a school experience somewhat different from Kavanaugh's: He describes a culture of rampant alcoholism, frequent blackout drinking, shady parties rife with activities that "would get us arrested today," and gay priests who in his opinion threatened the sacred tenets of Catholicism.
Judge went on to a career writing for the Daily Caller, American Spectator and other right-wing outlets. In his writings, he has compared marriage equality to incest; said gay people are "perverts" who caused AIDS; cited without evidence the "very high odds" his bike was stolen by a black man; called Barack Obama "the first female president" and "a clearly unqualified ... poster child for affirmative action"; praised "the wonderful beauty of uncontrollable male passion; wondered where all the “manly” journalists have gone; often attacked the liberal press, including a Mother Jones reporter he dismissed as "pro-abortion"; and frequently questioned high-profile accounts of rape and sexual assault, suggesting that women's clothing choices can entirely understandably lead to rape.
“Of course there is never any excuse to rape someone,” he wrote in one post complaining about feminism. “But it’s possible to have two seemingly contradictory thoughts to be both equally true...If a woman at her computer in Starbucks (is) sending out several signals simply by the way she is sitting, then women who dress like prostitutes are also sending out signals (by) using your body for cheap theatrics."
How unfair, he whines, that any straight white man calling them out is deemed "a shaming patriarchal frat boy jerk." From his mouth ... In the wake of the Kavanaugh furor, Judge recently deleted much of his social media content, including a soft porn YouTube channel featuring sexual videos of young women.
They've now resurfaced, because the Internet is forever. So, ultimately, is character or the lack therein, which is why all this matters, even from way back when, as we mull the next lifetime Supreme Court justice.
We hopefully evolve over time. But our enduring core values define us, as does the company we keep.
"Tell me with whom you associate," wrote German writer and statesman Goethe, "and I will tell you who you are."
(Abby Zimet writes for the excellent Common Dreams.)
-cw
