minutes to parsing the adolescent text on Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook page. Obviously intending to humiliate the nominee, the senator explored the meaning of the word “boofed”—“That refers to flatulence. We were sixteen,” Kavanaugh explained—revisited the references to “Renate alumnius,” which Kavanaugh had addressed fully in his opening statement, and inquired about “devil’s triangle,” a drinking game that Kavanaugh’s opponents had hoped was a reference to some sort of ménage à trois. (In response to Whitehouse’s questions, Senate Republicans would later release the sworn statement of four of Kavanaugh’s high school friends confirming that it was a drinking game and did not “refer to any kind of sexual activity.”)19
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, following Whitehouse, stated, “I can’t think of a more embarrassing scandal for the United States Senate since the McCarthy hearings.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota stood out among Democrats for her respectful treatment of the nominee in the previous hearings and in her meeting with him, as he noted with gratitude at the start of her questioning. After pressing him to ask the president to launch an FBI investigation, she turned to the subject of drinking, asking if he had ever had so much to drink that he could not remember the previous evening. He said no. She asked again. Obviously annoyed, he rudely responded, “Have you?” Taken aback, she said, “Could you answer the question, judge? I just—so you—that’s not happened? Is that your answer?” In circumstances that, admittedly, would have strained anyone’s patience, Kavanaugh’s good judgment seemed to abandon him momentarily, and he doubled down: “Yeah, and I’m curious if you have.” Klobuchar responded briskly, “I have no drinking problem,” and Kavanaugh added, “Nor do I.” They smiled at each other, and the questioning paused for a recess.
The media had by now figured out how well things were going for Kavanaugh. It wasn’t just his testimony, but his confidence in handling hostile questions. Lindsey Graham’s surprising defense—the first defense of Kavanaugh since Senator Grassley’s at ten o’clock that morning—was cathartic for those Americans whose views had been sidelined by the media in the previous two weeks.
Kavanaugh’s one misstep was his cheeky response to Senator Klobuchar. As soon as they returned to the holding room, McGahn told Kavanaugh it was time to reel it in. Ashley told Kavanaugh to calm down and encouraged him to find a way to address what he had said. Kavanaugh had not intended to be disrespectful; of all the Democrats on the committee, she was the one he would least want to offend.
As soon as the break ended, he apologized to Senator Klobuchar publicly.
The team also realized that the hearing was going as well as could be expected. McGahn told Kavanaugh that he had befuddled the Democrats. His powerful punches were the last thing they expected and made them look foolish for asking about high school antics. It was a good time to cool things down, as he did when questioned by Senators Coons, Harris, Hirono, and Booker.
He did punch back when Senator Blumenthal brought up the “Renate alumnius” again. The senator had begun by condescending to Kavanaugh about jury instructions, stumbling over the common law principle Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus (“False in one thing, false in everything.”) Blumenthal, trying to impeach Kavanaugh’s credibility, was the last senator who should have pursued this line of argument. He had previously misled the voters of Connecticut about his service in Vietnam.
Many Supreme Court nominees have referred to the galling indignity of having their character questioned by senators whose own characters are seriously besmirched. Joe Biden led the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Bork hearings at the same time his presidential ambitions were sinking because of his plagiarism. Ted Kennedy’s lengthy list of sexual improprieties never inhibited the “Lion of the Senate” from smearing nominees of exemplary character. Robert Packwood of Oregon, one of only two Republican senators to vote against Clarence Thomas, citing his concern for women’s rights, was forced to resign from the Senate four years later under threat of expulsion for a “habitual pattern of aggressive, blatantly sexual advances, mostly directed at members of his own staff or others whose livelihoods were connected in some way to his power and authority as a Senator.”
The rest of Kavanaugh’s hearing was relatively quiet. The Republicans put the Democrats on the defensive for playing games with Ford’s allegation. Pressed by Senator Cornyn, Dianne Feinstein found herself insisting that she was not responsible for leaking Ford’s letter, even though her office was the only one that