Brett Kavenaugh - Not Suitable For The Supreme Or Any Other Court

I watched yesterday's confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavenaugh, who already serves on the DC Court of Appeals - the next highest federal court to the Supreme Court.

I conclude from his angry tirade delivered during the hearing that he lacks a judicial temperament. He should not be confirmed.

The hearing was held to address credible charges by a serious accusation by Doctor Christine Blasey Ford that in 1982 when she was 15 years old and Kavenaugh was 17 he attempted to rape her. She told a moving and convincing story.

At the time of the incident,  Kavenaugh was a student at an elite  Jesuit prep school in the DC area. I have a strong bias against these institutions, especially regarding a pervasive attitude of misogyny regarding women.

I attended public coeducational schools. I first encountered the prep school phenomenon when I went on summer training cruises with Naval Academy midshipmen. Many of these midshipmen had graduated from Catholic boys schools. I thought some if not most of the young men from that background thought rather too much of themselves and had an immature attitude toward girls.

Doctor Ford was the only accuser allowed to speak, but other accusers told even more harrowing tales of the sort of thing Kavenaugh and his colleagues did. These tales reminded me of exploits that prep-school types of Naval Academy midshipmen bragged about. They claimed to have arranged to have a young women in a bedroom with young men outside the bedroom door standing in line to take turns having sex with them. That was in 1955.

I never personally witnessed any of these claimed exploits and I thought it possible they didn't actually happen. Empty bragging is not unknown among 19 year olds. But whether true or not, what they bragged about was pretty disgusting. Especially among people aspiring to lead our armed forces.

I encountered many of these prep school types later in my naval career who never matured.

On the evidence of what I saw during the hearing, Brett Kavenaugh is one of those. His misogyny was strongly evident in his responses to questions from women senators. I know they are used to this, but we citizens should not put up with it.

Twenty-seven years ago, just as Brett Kavenaugh was graduating from Yale (which he bragged about to Senator Amy Klobuchar as "the number one law school," clearly implying that this entitled him to a place on the Supreme Court). That same year, 1991, was the year of the navy's infamous Tail Hook scandal. Tail Hook was another example of misogyny by young leaders of America's elite.

I see Brett Kavenaugh as strongly in the same tradition. In my view, his confirmation should be strongly opposed.