Mark Judge, the man who Christine Blasey Ford says was in the room when Brett Kavanaugh pinned her down, covered her mouth to prevent her from screaming, and tried to tear her clothes off, first responded to the allegations by saying “I have no recollection of that,” a classic evasion if there ever was one. Judge has since upgraded his denial to “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way,” but it’s worth remembering that his first response was classic weasel.
And as Republicans launch an assault on Christine Blasey Ford, the victim here, it’s worth taking a close, close look at Kavanaugh’s character witness. That’s Mark Judge—especially now that most of the 65 women who last week signed a letter in defense of Kavanaugh’s high school character have gone to ground, with just four publicly standing behind the letter as of this writing. Back in high school, Judge was the kind of guy whose yearbook quote was about hitting women. Not hitting on them. Hitting them. Judge has also written a memoir about his heavy drinking in high school, heavy drinking being completely consistent with Ford’s memory of Kavanaugh’s assault on her. In fact, his memoir makes clear that he was a blackout drunk, so “Mark Judge doesn’t remember something that someone says happened while he was drunk” is not much of a defense.
And this is how his brother described him, in 1997, after Judge published that memoir, a memoir that included a negative picture of his late father:
The great, insoluble problem of my family has never really been my father.
Mark claims in his book that we all lived in terror of my father’s drunken outbursts. I can only say that he is right in one thing; my family did come to fear one of its members. As another member of our family commented during one of many meetings about Mark’s behavior, “Mark went to Markland a long time ago.” He still lives there. Sadly for my mother, that still means home.
And that’s it, that’s the real problem—not alcoholism or a lousy childhood or an abusive father. Mark is a solipsist: spoiled as a child, gazing always inward, unable to recognize any pain but his own.
Also relevant to Judge’s defense of Kavanaugh as not having attempted to rape Ford: He’s written about how, while no means no, there’s also an “ambiguous middle ground” in which, if a man “is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself to feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion.”
Mark Judge says it’s nuts to think that Brett Kavanaugh would have tried to rape a girl at a high school party, but everything about Ford’s account lines up with what we know about Judge. Kavanaugh may have done a better job of hiding who he is all these years, but given that he’s shown a willingness to lie under oath repeatedly, we don’t have any more reason to trust him.
