Consummate liars in high places

[Kavanaugh's] comments about drinking that rankled some Yale University classmates, prompting them to speak out for the first time.

[...]

Liz Swisher, who described herself as a friend of Kavanaugh in college, said she was shocked that — in an interview focused largely on his high school years and allegations of sexual misconduct — he strongly denied drinking to the point of blacking out.

“Brett was a sloppy drunk, and I know because I drank with him. I watched him drink more than a lot of people. He’d end up slurring his words, stumbling,” said Swisher, a Democrat and chief of the gynecologic oncology division at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

  Washington Post

Apparently, it was important for us to know that she's a Democrat. Turnabout's fair play, I guess:

Lynne Brookes, who like Swisher was a college roommate of one of the two women now accusing Kavanaugh of misconduct, said the nominee’s comments on Fox did not match the classmate she remembered. “He’s trying to paint himself as some kind of choir boy,” said Brookes, a Republican and former pharmaceutical executive who recalled an encounter with a drunken Kavanaugh at a fraternity event. “You can’t lie your way onto the Supreme Court, and with that statement out, he’s gone too far. It’s about the integrity of that institution.”

[...]

Brookes, Ramirez’s roommate for a year, said she was present one night when Kavanaugh participated in an event with his fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon. Brookes said she believes there was “no way” he remembered all of the behavior she observed that night, when fraternity brothers pushed pledges to get “ridiculously drunk” and do “ridiculous things.”

Brookes said she remembers seeing Kavanaugh outside the Sterling Memorial Library, wearing a superhero cape and an old leather football helmet and swaying, working to keep his balance.

He was ordered to hop on one foot, grab his crotch and approach her with a rhyme, Brookes said. He couldn’t keep balanced, she said, but belted out the rhyme she’s remembered to this day: “I’m a geek, I’m a geek, I’m a power tool. When I sing this song, I look like a fool.”

Two women. So their comments can be discounted. Too bad for Kavanaugh that his roommate, who also said he was a drinker - and a mean one, at that - is a man.

As Thursday’s hearing approached, three Yale Law School classmates who had endorsed Kavanaugh called for an investigation into her claims and those of the other woman, and Yale Law professor Akhil Amar — who taught Kavanaugh and testified on his behalf before the committee — called for a probe into what he described as “serious accusations.”

And Amar has since backpeddled. But, there are, of course still Kavanaugh defenders.

“Drinking was prevalent in high school, but some guys handled it better than others, and Brett always maintained his composure,” said Tom Kane, a close friend who met Kavanaugh when the two entered Georgetown Prep in 1979. “He was not a stumbling drunk. He was never all that interested in getting wasted.”

Chris Dudley, who played basketball for Yale and later went on to a career in the NBA, said he considers Kavanaugh a great friend who is being unfairly maligned.

“I went out with him all the time. He never blacked out. Never even close to blacked out,” said Dudley, a 2010 Republican candidate for governor of Oregon. “There was drinking, and there was alcohol. Brett drank, and I drank. Did he get inebriated sometimes? Yes. Did I? Yes. Just like every other college kid in America.”

And how about Kavanaugh's own previous recollection?

Kavanaugh acknowledged heavy drinking in a 2014 speech to the Yale Federalist Society. He recalled organizing a boozy trip for 30 of his Yale Law classmates to Boston for a baseball game and a night of barhopping, complete with “group chugs from a keg” and a return to campus by “falling out of the bus onto the steps of Yale Law School at about 4:45 a.m.”

According to his scripted remarks, he said: “Fortunately for all of us, we had a motto. What happens on the bus stays on the bus.”

He said the same thing about Georgetown Prep in a speech.

Meanwhile, three Yale classmates who along with others endorsed Kavanaugh last month in a letter to the Judiciary Committee called Tuesday for an investigation into the sexual assault claims.

“The confirmation process should be conducted in a way that fosters trust in the process and the Supreme Court, and that seriously considers allegations of sexual violence,” Kent Sinclair, a political independent who practices law in Beverly, Mass., and Douglas Rutzen, a lawyer in Washington and registered Democrat, said in a joint statement.

Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in St. Paul, Minn., said in an interview that “the focus can’t just be on the accusers and trying to bring their veracity into question. The circumstances need to be probed.”

I'm guessing that the Republican chaired Judiciary Committee will call it a wash and ram through the vote in the full Senate, which is also Republican controlled, and none of them will give two shits what Kavanaugh did, nor that he repeatedly lied about other things in his hearings and has a very, very fishy financial history.

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

 UPDATE:

Yale Law School graduates Kent Sinclair, Douglas Rutzen and Mark Osler, all of whom previously signed a letter attesting to Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh’s virtue, are now pushing for an investigation into the accusations against him, according to a Tuesday Washington Post report.

“The confirmation process should be conducted in a way that fosters trust in the process and the Supreme Court, and that seriously considers allegations of sexual violence,” Sinclair told the Washington Post.

These three are not the only Yale classmates of Kavanaugh’s who have had a change of heart since the number of allegations against him grew.

Two of his peers during his undergrad time at Yale, Louisa Garry and Dino Ewing, withdrew their names Monday from a statement of support

  TPM