I believe that Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh lied his ass off during the Senate confirmation last fall. I believe that he’s a smug rightwing shithead who comes from an entitled preppy background. On top of which I knew he would lie before he opened his mouth. Because one look at his ugly pig eyes told me everything. Plus that awful, inelegant, frat-house voice of his. Plus the fact that his right hand was open-fingered when he swore to tell the truth.

Posted on 10.10.18: “Formal oath-swearings are always accompanied by an open right hand. (And sometimes with the left hand on a Bible.) But you always swear with your fingers closed, not open. Open fingers are symbolic of insincerity or a lack of solemnity. Sir Thomas More: “When a man makes an oath, Meg, he’s holding himself in his own hands, like water. And if he opens his fingers then he needn’t hope to find himself again.”

Boilerplate: The New York Times has brilliantly mishandled a 9.14 story about a new sexual misconduct allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. The article by Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly, which is drawn from their forthcoming book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation” (Portfolio, 9.17), reports that a former classmate of Kavanaugh’s, Max Stier, saw the future Supreme Court Justice “with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”

The Times story initially failed to note that “the female student [in question] declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident”. Translation: If (I say “if”) the woman was in fact involved in the incident, she’s almost certainly declining to confirm out of a fear of suffering attacks upon her credibility and character by right-wing media.

This information (minus my logical inference) has since been added to the article. Stier is identified as the head of “a nonprofit organization in Washington” — he’s president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service. The Times story reports that Stier “notified senators and the F.B.I. about this account, but the F.B.I. did not investigate and Stier has declined to discuss it publicly.” Pogrebin and Kelly report that they “corroborated the story with two officials who have communicated with Mr. Stier.”