I would have had some respect for Judge Brett Kavanaugh if he had, at the very least, admitted that he was a lout at least once as a teen. He was a rich white boy at an all-male boarding school in the 1980s – of course he was a jerk and treated girls poorly, at least once (although, based on his yearbook entries, I suspect it was more than once).

He hung out with a guy who published a book about frequently being blind drunk and hyperfocused on hooking up with girls, and then he actually cites this same guy as a witness to his innocence.

Wow. Kavanaugh is not that stupid. He is so blinded by his self-pitying rage and rich white boy entitlement he couldn’t see just how absurd it is to try to convince us that he is “100 percent” innocent.

I would have found him more credible if he said something along the lines of: “Maybe I was a lout from time to time as a teen, but I don’t remember it the way she does. I thought we were playing and she was in on the game. I didn’t realize she was scared.

“Yes, I did drink too much and there are some times where I couldn’t remember what exactly went down. I was trying to be a big man on campus and keep up with the more popular boys. We wrote horrible things in our yearbooks and did not always respect girls. I’m glad times are changing and hope that we are all raising our boys to be better behaved and our girls to be more empowered.”

I am not sure I would have believed him, but at least it would make more sense and be more in keeping with the facts of girls’ and women’s experiences.

Lisa Morris

Portland

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