Fast Times at Georgetown Prep

Two and a half months ago, this newspaper endorsed the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to become an Associate Justice on the US Supreme Court ("Brett Kavanaugh for US Supreme Court", July 10, 2018).

Now, just days before the scheduled confirmation vote, an accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has come forward to charge Kavanaugh with attempted sexual assault, back in the summer of 1981 or 1982, in an upstairs bedroom, at a drunken high school house party, when both Kavanaugh and Ford were teenage high school students in the Washington DC area. Kavanaugh's confirmation has now been delayed by the US Senate, and both Kavanaugh and Ford have been called to testify.

Expect the star witness to be one Mark Judge, whom Ford has claimed was the "third person" in the bedroom, and whose drunken antics of allegedly jumping on Kavanaugh and Ford ended the claimed assault. Judge is now a Washington-based journalist, and has already stated that the claimed assault "never happened." Judge has written some controversial things - criticizing the Catholic Church for sexual abuse, and a tome about high school life in 1980 called "Wasted: Tales of a Gen-X Drunk" - but that is what journalists do.

But this hearing is before the United States Senate - once called the "world's greatest deliberative body" - now reduced to low farce. So expect Senate Democrats - itching to "re-litigate" the Clarence Thomas confirmation of 27 years ago - to attack Kavanaugh as a sexual predator, and try to discredit Judge - the only independent alleged witness - by picking apart his writings of the past 35 years.

You are going to hear - ad nauseum - about high school keg parties; the "elitism" of Catholic students at Kavanaugh's high school, Georgetown Prep; the suspicious "lie detector test" taken last month by Ford; and the political beliefs and activism of the players (including Ford's "pink pussy hat" march and Judge's writing about patting Laura Bush's bottom).

We are going to get to re-live all the dysfunctionality and adolescent sexual fumbling of high schoolers in the early 1980's - sort of a "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" - except it will be narrated by 80-year old, geriatric US Senators, who last went to high school when Eisenhower was President.

None of this should matter. Kavanaugh was never accused of any crime. He was never arrested. Even Ford claims there was no rape or anything beyond drunken adolescent groping. Drunken antics at High School keg parties have been part of American culture - from "American Graffiti" to "Animal House" - for decades. Millions of American high school kids have organized them - to get drunk and act like idiots.

It is unworthy of this country and its history to troll through 40-year old recollections of juvenile high school keg parties, to divine the fitness of a person for office. The US Senate should stop this farce before it occurs, and confirm Kavanaugh now.