Cringing at Kavanaugh

Watching Brett Kavanaugh get sentimental--"My little daughter--she's all of ten (choke!) said we should pray for the woman!"--was sobering. Does he actually believe what he's saying? Or does he feel his past just doesn't work in the conversation right now? Or is it dawning on him that he hopes to protect her from guys like himself? Would anyone be surprised if, when she grows up, she goes for guys who have alcoholic blackouts?
In 1991, when Anita Hill was testifying about her boss, Clarence Thomas, eyeballing her and commenting on her "large breasts," Senator Arlen Spector seemed to think this was "not too bad" and Senator Joe Biden questioned her in jawdroppingly inappropriate ways--the C-SPAN recording of the event may be found on You-Tube but not uploaded, but at approximately one hour and three minutes the harassment of Hill by senators who ought to have known better intensifies. Politico has harvested the worst moments on another video that won't upload.
The difference between the "younger, whiter Clarence Thomas," as Randy Rainbow dubbed Brett Kavanaugh, and the original lies in the degree of violence. Both men kept going when the women whom they assaulted said "no," and "please stop." Thomas's assault remained verbal--urging Hill to watch a video called "Long Dong Silver" when she wouldn't accept his invitation to go out with him. Kavanaugh's drunken physical assault on a terrified Christine Blasey Ford, who thought she would die of asphyxiation, when both were teenagers, may be something he can't remember--but he remembers going out with his friends, partying, and drinking into oblivion.  As many American law professors have noted, a man who responds with the arrogance and belligerence of Kavanaugh on the witness stand is not a man whose judgement is steady enough for the highest court in the land--whether he's guilty of assaulting Ford or not. Asked whether he'd had an alcoholic blackout, Kavanaugh retorted, "Well, have you?" His tears came across to me as "No fair, Mommy." A woman crying like that on the witness stand would have been shredded by her questioners. Somehow, his tears were seen by those in power as humanizing him. And they do--they show our worst side. No one, he has said, is above the law. He may well get away with lying--it looks as though he has done so, and I wish I could be optimistic about efforts to impeach him. But the truth has a way of worming its way to the surface. No matter what he may achieve, no matter how high he climbs, he'll always know how drunk he got and how the booze brought out his worst side. He'll always know from his pals what he did when he was drunk. What affect will his past have on his daughters? The truth will out in their lives, possibly in their choice of future life partners.