[jacobolus]

Behavior such as repeatedly making easily disprovable statements (which numerous past acquaintances who had no particular reason to otherwise make public statements about his nomination called out as blatant lies), and pugnaciously asking a Senator whether she ever gets black-out drunk.

After starting his career in politics as a vicious partisan hack e.g. involved directly in a conspiracy to undermine Judiciary Committee hearings, perjuring himself in his first judicial confirmation hearing, and spending his judicial career on tireless and extreme support for corporate interests, he should have not been the nominee; there are many less controversial and more respected choices among high-profile career members of the GOP. But if he had acted like an adult in the hearing and been willing to admit to being an angry drunken partier as in his teens and twenties who might have done stupid things and not remembered, and demonstrated some contrition and sign of personal growth, I and many others would have some respect for it.

Instead, his behavior was the most hostile and disrespectful I have ever seen in a public hearing. I urge anyone curious about this to watch the 3 hour hearing for yourself. In my view his confirmation is a stain on the Senate and the Court. It cements the public perception that the rich and powerful can do anything they want, remain unapologetic, and face no consequences.

[manfredo]

He repeatedly stated that did consumed large quantities of alcohol in late high school and in college. Maybe there is diagreement over the exact degree of inebriation, but I am not so sure it's correct to say he lied. Regardless, the two points after are where the problematic nature of the complaints against Kavanaugh surface:

> who sometimes shoved his penis in women’s faces,

Another allegation which he denies. As I predicted, the core complaint is that he denies the allegations made against him. This is effectively constructing a situation in which the accused is guilty of something no matter what. Either 1) the accused does not defend themselves and is guilty of the alleged crimes, or 2) the accused does defend themselves, but in the world view you've constructed this makes them guilty of hostility and disrespect.

> and demonstrated some contrition

Contrition for what? He denies said allegations. Again, when you get to the bottom of it this is essentially criticizing the fact that Kavanaugh maintained his innocence. This is what was so pernicious about the Kavanaugh hearings that bothered even me, a lifelong Democrat. The fact that merely trying to defend oneself against an allegations is grounds for negative character judgement is at odds with the core principles of justice.

> and sign of personal growth, I and many others would have some respect for it.

If going from a binge drinking teenager to Supreme Court nominee (let alone Justice) doesn't demonstrate personl growth I don't know what does. This is greater growth than most people on HN will likely achieve (myself included).

Update: It appears the above poster had since edited their comment. My response took a while to write, so it could be that their edit was made before my response was done. I urge commenters not to assume bad faith on their part.

[jacobolus]

> He repeatedly stated that did consumed large quantities of alcohol in late high school and in college.

No, he repeatedly denied it (while only admitting that he “liked and likes beer” and occasionally drank beer in moderation). He also made up comically absurd lies about his high school yearbook, and lied about several other more serious topics e.g. related to his work for Starr and his work as a Bush staffer. (I don’t intend to re-litigate this here. You can do a web search and find numerous analyses of the details.)

[manfredo]

From his testimony:

> I drank beer with my friends. Almost everyone did. Sometimes I had too many beers.

It may be valid to say that his drinking was more serious than his tone seems to indicate, but to say that he did not admit drinking to excess is factually incorrect.

[jacobolus]

The description from everyone who knew him was that he got shit-faced several times per week, and was commonly a belligerent drunk.

Did you watch the hearing? If not, I strongly recommend it. I don’t know anyone who watched it all the way through who thought that Kavanaugh was being candid or sincere in response to Senators’ polite questioning.

A nomination hearing is not a trial; you should not be trying to parse his statements as if it were. The standard for a Supreme Court Justice should not be “well if we give him the benefit of the doubt he was grossly misleading, uncooperative, and aggressively disrespectful but a jury might not convict him of perjury”.

P.S. What do you think “boof” and “devil’s triangle” mean?