When Brett got drunk
Chad Ludington gave a statement about Kavanaugh to the press:
I have been contacted by numerous reporters about Brett Kavanaugh and have not wanted to say anything because I had nothing to contribute about what kind of justice he would be. I knew Brett at Yale because I was a classmate and a varsity basketball player and Brett enjoyed socializing with athletes. Indeed, athletes formed the core of Brett’s social circle.
In recent days I have become deeply troubled by what has been a blatant mischaracterization by Brett himself of his drinking at Yale. When I watched Brett and his wife being interviewed on Fox News on Monday, and when I watched Brett deliver his testimony under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, I cringed. For the fact is, at Yale, and I can speak to no other times, Brett was a frequent drinker, and a heavy drinker. I know, because, especially in our first two years of college, I often drank with him. On many occasions I heard Brett slur his words and saw him staggering from alcohol consumption, not all of which was beer. When Brett got drunk, he was often belligerent and aggressive. On one of the last occasions I purposely socialized with Brett, I witnessed him respond to a semi-hostile remark, not by defusing the situation, but by throwing his beer in the man’s face and starting a fight that ended with one of our mutual friends in jail.
It is perhaps not pushing things too far to surmise that Kavanaugh’s belligerence is why that was one of the last times Ludington hung out with him on purpose.
I do not believe that the heavy drinking or even loutish behavior of an 18- or even 21-year-old should condemn a person for the rest of his life. I would be a hypocrite to think so. However, I have direct and repeated knowledge about his drinking and his disposition while drunk. And I do believe that Brett’s actions as a 53-year-old federal judge matter. If he lied about his past actions on national television, and more especially while speaking under oath in front of the United States Senate, I believe those lies should have consequences. It is truth that is at stake, and I believe that the ability to speak the truth, even when it does not reflect well upon oneself, is a paramount quality we seek in our nation’s most powerful judges.
Yes, but also – there is a difference between condemning a person for the rest of his life, and not making a person a Supreme Court justice. It’s not necessary to condemn Kavanaugh for the rest of his life to conclude that he’s not a good choice for the Supreme Court partly because of his history of loutish behavior. That would be true even without evidence that he still behaves like a lout, but hey guess what, we have plenty of evidence that he still behaves like a lout, because he did exactly that on national television last Thursday. He put on a stellar performance of an enraged entitled pugnacious asshole, and someone like that should not be on the Court.
But Ludington’s point is that he lied under oath, and that too is a no-no.
