Brett Kavanaugh cannot be a good judge according to Brett Kavanaugh

Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh delivered a shockingly belligerent 45-minute meltdown on live TV last Thursday, revealing himself to be unhinged, unstable — and unqualified for the Supreme Court. Or in fact any judicial seat.

That’s according to Kavanaugh himself, who in a 2015 speech opined that “a good judge” must “have the proper demeanor” and “keep our emotions in check.”

“It’s important to have the proper demeanor,” Kavanaugh said at the time. “Really important, I think. To walk in the others’ shoes, whether it be the other litigants, the litigants in the case, the other judges. To understand them. To keep our emotions in check. To be calm amidst the storm.”

Compare that to the ranting, shrieking man who testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, even issuing ominous threats against Democratic senators. “You sowed the wind,” he told them, and “the country will reap the whirlwind.”

Kavanaugh showed himself utterly incapable of keeping his emotions in check that day, trembling and shouting and lashing out at senators who dared to question him.

“On the bench, to put it in the vernacular, don’t be a jerk,” said the Kavanaugh of 2015. Meanwhile, the Kavanaugh of 2018 accused multiple women who have come forward with allegations of sexual assault of being part of a nefarious plot of “revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”

Throughout his confirmation process, Kavanaugh has sought to portray himself as a lifelong choir boy, too focused on his studies and on church, even in high school, to engage in the kinds of “stumbling drunk” parties, debauchery, and outright crimes of which he has been accused.

That image is a lie, according to many of Kavanaugh’s former classmates. He was a “sloppy drunk,” several have said. Even his insistence that he was a virgin in high school and for many years after isn’t true, according to former Yale classmate Steve Kantrowitz.

Kavanaugh’s own high school year book is filled with references to excessive drinking and lewd jokes, including one disrespectful and sexually suggestive boast about a supposed friend named Renate.

Incredibly, Kavanaugh claimed on Thursday that calling himself a member of the “Renate Alumnius” was a sign of “affection” for a “good friend.”

The pure and innocent image Kavanaugh has tried to project is at odds with the hysterical, angry, and out-of-control man the country saw Thursday. That man lacked the demeanor and the ability to keep his emotions in control that one would expect of a judge.

That man was, by any fair definition, a jerk.

Kavanaugh put up a decent enough show through much of his confirmation process. But faced with serious and credible allegations of assault — and the possibility that he would not get the job to which he clearly feels entitled — he revealed himself to be, by his own standards, wholly unfit.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.