A Mid-Month Twitter Roundup on Kavanaugh

Here's what I've been seeing on Twitter about the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, on a day when it looks as though the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold more hearings and/or delay its vote on his nomination because he is credibly accused of attempted rape as a 17-year-old.

"He didn't do this...a long time ago...and everybody did it...and what about all the people he didn't do it to?" is certainly a tightly crafted argument.
Mark Harris

High school date rape isn’t a phase for teenage boys and shouldn’t be treated like one. Some of y’all are sick.
Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady

As the Right tries to sell “Bad behavior of a 17-year-old has no bearing on a 53-year-old,” remember they overwhelmingly support policies that treat 17-year-olds as adults, sentence 17-year-olds to life w/o any possibility of parole, and burden 17-year-olds with criminal records limiting opportunity forever.
Scott Hechinger

How can we credibly tell American women that they are full and equal members of society if two of the people making decisions about their constitutional rights are sexual abusers?
Jessica Valenti

"If we refuse to hire men who've sexually assaulted someone, no men would be hired" is quite revealing.
"If we refuse to hire men who've sexually assaulted someone, we won't have any leaders" is VEEEEEEERY revealing.
EveForster

I feel like the "he was 17!" takes should probably mention that she was 15.
JonEHecht

The Republican party has now supported a sexual predator for the Presidency (Donald Trump), the Senate (Roy Moore) and the Supreme Court (Brett Kavanaugh). How do Republican women in America vote for a party that enables men who harm women? Where is your dignity and self-respect?
ProudResister

I want a venn diagram of people willing to argue "Give Kavanaugh a break, he was only 17" and "Trayvon Martin got what he deserved."
Jeet Heer

When an entire political party tells you they don’t give a damn about women, believe them.
Ian Millhiser

In 1987, Douglas Ginsburg had to withdraw from a supreme court nomination because he smoked grass a few times.
Jeet Heer

So, to summarize, a confessed serial sexual predator nominated a man who is credibly accused of attempted rape to be the key vote to strip women of reproductive freedom.
Ian Millhiser

Sometimes I amuse myself by imagining America's Old White Men enduring just a hint, just a dram, just a tiny, tiny scosche of the endless hassles, discrimination, disdain, and contempt women in America endure every f'ing day, in their personal lives and in public life. These are guys who make a national fuss when an animated show adds minority characters. When they receive the wrong holiday greeting at a store. When professional athletes kneel on their TV. Just IMAGINE if they faced what women face, for even a day. The earth would shake.
David Roberts

one of the things i simply know to be true at this point is that the vast majority of men simply do not consider women to be full human beings -- capable of the same vast range of emotions and thoughts and self-conceptions, flawed, weird, unique, whole
chick_in_kiev

“A woman has said he raped her in high school.”
“This list of 65 women from his high school say he’s great.”
“Wait, why did you have that list?”
“No reason."
@boymonster

Men should be glad women want equality and not revenge.
Otegha K. Uwagba

As with Al Franken, the standard here is not innocent until proven guilty. Another commentator put it this way: this isn't a trial, it's a job interview. We're not talking about depriving Kavanaugh of liberty, but instead leaving him in a lifetime appointment on the D.C. Circuit Court.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking of Anita Hill.

__

Update: More Twitter comments on this topic on Tuesday, September 18.

KAVANAUGH: I clearly remember not attending this party in the 1980s
KAVANAUGH: I can't remember a single thing about serving in the Bush Administration in the 2000s.
Max Burns

"She was drunk, this rape is her fault."
"He was drunk, this rape isn't his fault.
Chloe Angyal

Imagine listening to a friend make this extensive 'sympathy for the rapist' argument at a dinner party and then trusting him in the same room as your kids ever again. Why do we still have to hear these people speak, why.
Julius Goat

When men reflexively rush to defend a sexual assault as a youthful indiscretion, I assume they’re defending their own past rather than the accused’s.
The Hoarse Whisperer

If Kavanaugh is confirmed, that means every 5-4 opinion authored by the Court's conservative majority will include two men credibly accused of sexual harassment and attempted rape. If that doesn't call into question the legitimacy of the institution and the rule of law...
corey robin

Call me crazy, but I think middle-aged men should accept that if they committed an attempted rape in high school, and it is made public now, it is reasonable and not outrageous that it has an impact on their career. If Kavanaugh drove drunk as a teen and ran someone over, and that person recovered but was always affected by the injuries, while Kavanaugh never admitted responsibility, ever, in thirty years, we would feel differently about him. No one would be saying "Think of the men!" And we have to stop allowing this weird doublethink where one day people are saying huffily, "Not all men!" but when something like the Kavanaugh affair happens, it instantly becomes, "But this is totally normal behavior for boys!"
Sandra Newman

What’s more likely: That a woman lied to her therapist in 2012 about a sexual assault so that one day she might be able to upend her life & reputation should Kavanaugh be tapped for SCOTUS? Or that he did it?
Jessica Valenti

can we amend “boys will be boys” to “predators will be predators” so we’re not ascribing violent behavior as “normal” to an entire gender expression/identity
Aparna Nancherla