So now we have a name and some details to put to the story.
I must admit, I don't know what I want to happen next.
On the one hand, it's a pretty serious charge. Seriously bad behavior. On the other hand, it was seriously bad behavior by a drunk 17 year old kid. I really don't think this is very significant to the qualifications of a 53 year old man.
But wait. Kavanaugh denies it. It's "alleged" bad behavior. It could just be made up out of whole cloth. We can't derail appointments just based on the word of a witness from 35 years earlier, with no real corroboration. (I say no "real" corroboration, in the sense that no one else has provided anything beyond hearsay. The fact that she told someone it happened isn't very good corroboration.) And, back on the other hand, it was a party. Apparently very loud music playing, at least two seventeen year old boys, both drunk, and at least one 15 year old girl, also drunk. At a suburban home, but one where the 15 year old girl didn't even know the names of the owners. Ah, life in a more innocent time before MADD became a political powerhouse, when parents left their kids home alone, the kids threw gigantic parties with drugs, sex, and rock and roll, and no one got arrested for underage drinking, or parental neglect. Those were a heck of a lot more common back then. You can get in trouble for that sort of thing now.
However, here we go again, they were not so common that, even 35 years later, a whole lot of people wouldn't remember it. I got drunk an awful lot at the same age in similar circumstances just a year or so earlier than young Mr. Kavanaugh. I remember most of the places I got drunk, and many of the people I got drunk with. In other words, there should be plenty of people who remember this party, and what with high school yearbooks being on-line, it's so easy to track people down. People ought to be able to be found that could, at the very least, verify the existence of a party where Kavanaugh, his friend Judge, and the accuser Ms. Ford were present.
Meanwhile, Judge Kavanaugh categorically denies that this incident ever happened. To me, the significance of that is not that it is probative in determining whether or not it happened, but if we find out it really did happen, that would mean that he lied about it, yesterday. In other words, we wouldn't be judging the 17 year old sexual assaulter, but rather we would be judging the 53 year old liar. If this thing happened, even if the details were not exactly as described by Ms. Ford, I am certain Kavanaugh could remember it, assuming he could remember it the morning after it happened. Therefore, a denial today would be a lie, today, not 35 years ago.
So is it a good thing that reporters will be scouring suburban Maryland, or Facebook posts from people who grew up there, for corroborating stories?
It gets complicated. I'm not sure what I want, but I expect that we will soon hear more details from other people, investigating teenaged life in the early 1980s.
