The Statement Kavanaugh Should Have Written, Though His Handlers Wouldn't Have Let Him Read It Because Trump Would Have Thought It Made Him Sound Weak

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You may recall that in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, it came to light that Gov. Romney, as a teenager, had put together a little posse to torment and humiliate an effeminate classmate, and to forcibly cut his long hair. I wasn’t effeminate, but was a product of the same culture that produced Gov. Romney. No teenage boy wants to be seen as weak or unmanly, and no teenage boy doesn’t hope for the acceptance or even admiration of his peers. Decency and gentleness didn’t get one very far at all in the world in which I reached late adolescence. One had to exhibit a rapacious appetite for both alcohol and women. A lack of regard for the latter’s wishes was seen as manly, and manliness was something without which we’d all been taught we were contemptible.

With enough beer in him, one such as myself could convincingly pretend not to hear his inner voice saying, “No, this is an awful way to behave, and you know it!” Trying to (and, I might add, succeeding in) winning the admiration of my peers, I very often had more than enough beer in me, and undoubtedly acted appallingly.

I honestly don’t remember the episode that Dr. Ford has described, but can’t in good faith pretend it couldn’t have happened. If it did, I cannot hope to apologise with sufficient eloquence, but I shall never cease trying.

Even if the incident Dr. Ford described involved someone other than myself, there’s no question that I often behaved  deplorably, for which I now, as an adult, as a man who loves and cherishes his wife and daughters, and hopes no less avidly for the admiration of his female colleagues than he did as a teenager for his classmates’, apologise from the depths of my soul. I can’t un-commit the crimes of my adolescence, but I can strive to be a diligent, conscientious, and, above all, just member of the Supreme Court, to stand up at all times for the weak and voiceless as tirelessly as any justice has ever done.

I ask, with sincere humility and contrition without limit, to be granted the chance to make up for my horrid behaviour as a man not yet fully formed.