The Ramirez Accusation
This one, as bizarre as it is, strikes me as the most plausible of the lot.
There is just so much unmitigated bullshit pouring from the anti-Kavanaugh sectors that it's hard to take any of it seriously anymore...but I do think this one ought to be taken seriously.
There is just so much unmitigated bullshit pouring from the anti-Kavanaugh sectors that it's hard to take any of it seriously anymore...but I do think this one ought to be taken seriously.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:56 PM
2 Comments:
I don’t get why being a belligerent, drunken asshole for a large portion of his life:
1) Wasn’t turned up by the standard background check performed on him as a Supreme Court nominee.
2) Doesn’t seem to matter to anyone on its own merits.
Yeah, yeah, I read Anonymous’ claim that we’ll be stuck with puritans if we don’t ease up on a guy alleged to be a belligerent drunken asshole, but if that ain’t a false dichotomy for ya, then I fear for your drinking habits, as well. There’s a middle ground, ya know.
When people sign up for gigs of far less influence (with the FBI, for example!), they are scrutinized pretty intensely regarding character, drug use, and potential sources of blackmail. I mean, I always suspected the scrutiny was mostly pro forma, since, judging by my peers, my generation would otherwise be left without a sufficient number of FBI agents or Supreme Court nominees, but still..
You’d think it would be sort of a disqualifier. Living a life of a raging alcoholic, especially a belligerent one, means he’s probably got enough people with the ability to blackmail him that he’s too risky on that count alone. Regardless of its misuse as evidence for him being a rapist or whatever, almost certainly lying about not ever blacking out while drunk (making him distinct from every single heavy drinker I’ve ever known, and that’s a double digit count for me) should show just how vulnerable and manipulable he is. If it is true that, under threat of an unsavory fact’s misuse, he lies under oath to protect himself, well then GTFO, sir. GTFO.
If everyone wasn’t goin’ so crazy over questionable accusations, it seems to me there is likely a preponderance of evidence that he was:
1) A raging, belligerent, stumbling alcoholic.
and therefore:
2) A liar under oath.
not to mention:
3) An untenable blackmail risk (as evidenced by (2), even)
Or:
4) An untenable character risk
I mean, really. Whether or not he drank to the levels attested in a book his drinkin’ pal wrote about it, fer the lova God, ought to be comparatively rudimentary to establish. If so, I would bet very large sums of money that he is lying about not drinking to the point of blacking out...since that would make him the first I’ve ever known to drink that much and not fail to remember significant portions of his nights. And I’ve seen a lot of drunken nights. In fact, it’s all so preposterously unlikely, given my experience of observing heavy drinkers while sober for four years of undergrad, it’s kinda remarkable to me that anyone suggests in any way other than sarcastically that he may somehow be telling the truth about it. I thought people would at least accept that this is common knowledge about collegiate drinking.
I mean, here’s a Duke University survey of 772 students with 40% reporting experiencing an alcohol-fueled blackout within the past year: https://www.verywellmind.com/social-drinkers-can-blackout-too-62810.
This shit happens all the time. It is so common among even non-regularly-heavy drinkers, there’s virtually no chance someone like the dude described in Judge’s book, and by others from his past who are now coming forward to suggest he is covering up a very drunken last, simply never experienced it.
And that makes him a liar.
Under oath.
About facts he doesn’t like.
Because he’s a big, fat, drunk.
And that’s my rambling, slightly-redundant-with-my-last-comment opinion on this nonsense.
Well, there's no evidence that he's a drunk *now*. I've also heard that everybody's basically expected to spin/fib/lie under oath about personal things, and it's expected and tolerated. But IANAL. Also half the committee probably agrees with me that asking him about his youthful drinking was irrelevant and bullshit...*and* that the goalposts have now been moved, and the fishing expedition has begun. And the Pubs probably shouldn't/won't knuckle under to that.
This guy sounds like a drunken lout as an undergrad. Sounds like he's lucky to have gotten out of it without several grade-A ass-beatings...but he seems to be a good guy now. And being an undergraduate asshole isn't grounds for rejection.
I simply don't believe the Duke study. Unless "blacking out" means: I forgot some stuff until reminded of it. But if it means: I forgot some stuff, and couldn't remember it even when reminded of it...I just don't believe it. I may be an artifact of an undergrad culture that encourages exaggerating one's drinking. But I suppose it's *possible.*
I suppose I now think that this is a political football. Things have been escalated to such a point that, in addition to deciding who's going to be on the court, it seems as if we're staking out positions on questions like "how will we tread 40-year-old, inconsistent, uncorroborated accusations of sexual assault?" The Pubs want to establish a paradigm case...and so do the Dems. (I guess.)
So, while I am sympathetic to the position that there's just too much there there, and we can find a better candidate than Kavanaugh...well...there may be other, equally big fish to fry here. The Dems have acted horribly IMO, and they give no sign of letting up. I think I'd understand the Pubs drawing a line in the sand here.
Anyway: unlike in the other cases, we now have an actual police report that shows K to be an aggressive, drunken shit-head as an undergrad... We just have to ask how much that matters.
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