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The Disturbed Worldview Of Kavanaugh Buddy Mark Judge

The Disturbed Worldview Of Kavanaugh Buddy Mark Judge
Reprinted with permission from MediaMatters.
››› TIMOTHY JOHNSON & CRISTINA LóPEZ G.

 

According to Christine Blasey Ford, when she was 15, a “stumbling drunk” Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her at a party while his classmate Mark Judge was in the room. Both Kavanaugh and Judge have denied the incident occurred, with Judge telling the conservative Weekly Standard, “It’s just absolutely nuts. I never saw Brett act that way.” Judge is the author of a memoir in which he described himself as an alcoholic who was often drunk to the point of blacking out during high school. He went on to become a conservative commentator who has promoted disturbing views about women and offered racist and anti-gay commentary.

Judge, a self-described alcoholic, wrote a memoir saying he often drank to the point of blacking out during high school

Mother Jones: “The alleged witness in the Kavanaugh case wrote a memoir about his own schoolboy days as blackout drunk.” Mother Jones noted that the extreme drinking and substance abuse described by Judge in his memoir “might suggest his memory of those days may not be entirely reliable”:

In his 2005 book, God and Man at Georgetown Prep, which is now out of print, Judge apparently paints the school as overrun with gay priests who promote a form of liberalism that wrecks Catholic education. He also describes an institution where alcoholism was rampant, a theme he detailed in his 1997 addiction memoir, Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk.

That book chronicles Judge’s time as a teenage alcoholic. Like many works of the genre, it devotes a lot of ink to the kinds of debauchery that leads to Alcoholics Anonymous and recovery. While there’s nothing in the book that resembles the incident reportedly described in the private letter given to the FBI, Judge says his own blackout drinking while he and Kavanaugh were Georgetown Prep students “reached the point where once I had the first beer, I found it impossible to stop until I was completely annihilated.”

He describes, for instance, what happened after a night of heavy drinking with friends at a Georgetown bar. “The next thing I knew, I was lying on a bathroom floor. I was curled up in the fetal position with saliva running out of the side of my mouth,” Judge writes, explaining that he had inexplicably woken up inside a nearby Four Seasons Hotel. He writes that he called his mom for help getting home. “I must have come over here and passed out,” he tells her.

The amount of drinking Judge describes himself undertaking might suggest his memory of those days may not be entirely reliable. [Mother Jones, 9/15/18]

Judge wrote that he was “thankful that there was no social media to capture” he and his friends’ antics in high school. Relating a get-together he had with friends from high school, Judge wrote, “When my high school buddies and I got together and exchanged memories of that time, we found ourselves genuinely shocked at the stuff we got away with.” [Acculturated, accessed 9/17/18]

Judge frequently uses his media platforms to offer degrading and abusive commentary about women

Judge’s views on masculinity are based on domination. In a 2013 column for conservative website The Daily Caller, Judge criticized how then-President Barack Obama interacted with Michelle Obama by writing that President George W. Bush “gave his wife Laura a loving but firm pat on the backside in public. The man knew who was boss.”

[Twitter, 9/16/18, The Daily Caller, 8/20/13]

Judge wrote that while there “is never any excuse to rape someone,” nonetheless “what women wear and their body language also send signals about their sexuality” and “women who dress like prostitutes are also sending out signals”:

 

[Twitter, 9/16/18, Acculturated, accessed 9/17/18]

Judge wrote that when men aren’t sure women are interested in sex, men should “allow” themselves to “feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion”:

 

[Twitter, 9/16/18, Splice Today, accessed 9/17/18]

Judge’s high school yearbook quote: “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.”

[Twitter, 9/16/18]

Judge: Women need to learn how to be more polite when rejecting romantic advances from men. Judge wrote that “younger women seem to have lost the ability to graciously turn down a man who politely and non-aggressively shows an interest in them” in a September 2014 column:

Younger women seem to have lost the ability to graciously turn down a man who politely and non-aggressively shows an interest in them.

We’ve all seen it—at bars, in clubs, at parties. A dude screws up the nerve to take that long walk across the room and ask a woman for her number or out for a date. For classy and polite ladies, the reply is a simple no-thank-you. Something like: “Thank you, I appreciate the interest, but I’m seeing someone right now.” Or: “I’m flattered, but I have some other things I’m focusing on now.” Yet for too many women, raised like the boorish catcallers, without the verbal social skills that allow for pleasant interaction, graciousness is just too much to ask for.

The results can be brutal to observe. Women giggle derisively, or hide behind a more punitive friend who dishes get-the-hell-out-of-here abuse at the man, or the girls-night-out group-laugh right in the guy’s face. [Acculturated, 9/9/14]

Splinter: Judge uploaded “sexualized videos of young women” on YouTube. A Splinter investigation into Judge’s social media postings, many of which have been deleted, cited “internet sleuths” who “found a YouTube channel that appeared to belong to Judge onto which he uploaded bizarre videos that intercut innocuous visuals of books and cityscapes with sexualized videos of young women”:

Though Judge quickly deleted his social media profiles as attention focused on him in the wake of the allegations, much of it was documented by internet sleuths. They found a YouTube channel that appeared to belong to Judge onto which he uploaded bizarre videos that intercut innocuous visuals of books and cityscapes with sexualized videos of young women. Twitter user TheDiscomfiture screenshotted many of the videos (some of them have been re-uploaded here). A deleted Flickr account users also linked to Judge featured similar images. Other photos that allegedly originated on Judge’s deleted Facebook page featured young girls in bikinis at a resort. [Splinter, 9/17/18]

Judge writes sexual fiction about high school age girls. In August 2018, Judge published a work of “fiction” about high school students from Maryland preparatory schools participating in “beach week.” On social media, Judge wrote that the piece was “based on a true story.” The story, written in first person, contains observations about characters from local all-girls preparatory schools, including descriptions like “beautiful tight ass,” “great tits,” and, “I saw love in all the girls from [Trinity] & [St. Anne’s] with large breasts and/or great asses.” [Raw Story, 9/16/18, Liberty Island, 8/15/18]

Judge: “The rage of the Jezebels is indicative of a serious cultural problem that is potentially fatal for the United States.” Judge wrote a negative review of The Book of Jezebel: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Lady Things in which he repeatedly characterized feminists as irrationally angry:

When you say feminists are angry, they respond that you are a “Frat Bro” or a right-winger, and the conversation stops. And a deeper analysis of feminist apoplexy is important because the rage of the Jezebels is indicative of a serious cultural problem that is potentially fatal for the United States, which has become a very, very angry country.

…

Thus the malevolence towards “dead white males” and the liberal obsession with feelings and personal grievance. The bogus “war on women” is really nothing but liberal women acting out against bad fathers. The frightening thing about this rage is that it is insatiable even as it demands resolution through politics.

…

Or the infamous 1979 town hall debate between Norman Mailer and Germain Greer and other feminists. Here were feminists faced with Norman Mailer, a Cro-Magnon brawler who had stabbed his own wife, and they (mostly) debated with humor and intelligence, delving deeply into complex psychological and cultural ideas. As the writer James Reich recently put it, in the town hall “the conflicts or navigations of the sexes are articulated with élan, wit, and through both good- and bad-natured mauling.”

More than thirty years later, and judging by The Book of Jezebel, feminists are so angry that debate with them is no longer possible. To them the only solution to their rage is through politics. There is a steady undercurrent of animus towards conservatives and Republicans in The Book of Jezebel, which is to be expected. But what is revealing is the intensity of the antipathy and its obsessive-compulsive quality (there’s also the heavy juvenile snark which is Jezebel’s calling card).

…

The writers at Jezebel are angry women. Their pain is beyond the reach of politics to solve. To be fair, there are many funny entries in The Book of Jezebel, like the one for Hipster: “Identifier claimed by no one but freely subjected on any person more Navajo-printed, leather-jacketed, asymmetrically-hairstyled, unshowered, ironically racist, Pitchfork-reading, warehouse-dwelling, amateur-mandolin-playing, or neon than you.” But the jokes can’t mask the rage. This is why that even as America has progressed and the treatment of women has vastly improved, the anger of the feminists has grown more acute. Nothing short of a matriarchal utopia will suffice. It’s easier than admitting what really ails you. [The Daily Caller, 10/21/13]

Judge praised Hugh Hefner and his magazine Playboy for their “ridicule of feminism”:

Say what you will about Hefner, and yes he’s always been kind of cheesy, but the man had a philosophy. Unlike today’s publishers, who go out of their way to avoid offending advertisers and the public, or journalists, who push their agenda then hide behind claims of “objectivity.” Hefner had balls. In 1955 Esquire magazine rejected “The Crooked Man,” a story by science fiction writer Charles Beaumont. It told the story of a man who lived in a homosexual society and was persecuted for being straight. Hefner published it. Hefner is also a known jazz fan, and the early Playboy ridiculed rock and roll as “noise.” It also made fun of beatniks and hippies. And, of course there was Playboy’s ridicule of feminism. Here’s Playboy’s call-out accompanying a 1970 article about the feminist movement: “militant man-haters do their level worst to distort the distinctions between make (sic) and female and the discredit the legitimate grievances of American women.” Such a piece might appear today in the American Spectator.

…

Hefner also felt that a well employed young bachelor was good for the American economy because of his disposable income. People forget because these days Hefner resembles a viagra-chomping Crypt Keeper, but in the early days Playboy advocated not the destruction of marriage, but rather letting a man have a period of exploration between college and marriage. Hefner had married his first wife Mildred right out of college; the marriage didn’t last, leading Hefner to not unreasonably conclude that having a period of bachelorhood between school and starting a family might be good for men, women, and the economy. Of course, that period for Hefner has now lasted about 107 years. But the Playboy founder’s original feeling was sound: men should have a time to be men and be able to buy stuff and date a lot of girls before taking the gas pipe and getting married. [The Daily Caller, 9/30/13]

Judge wondered “why are modern women angry” and blamed a “culture of self-affirmation and abundance” for women “feeling unsatisfied.” From a 2016 op-ed at Acculturated:

By contrast, many modern women seem quick to express anger about their lives. Living in a world of unlimited choices and constant affirmation, they nonetheless seem resentful. Even celebrities aren’t immune: Pop star Madonna is richer than many small countries and is absolutely free to do, say, and wear (or not wear) anything she wants to. Yet when fans have the audacity to be upset that she’s an hour late for a show, as she was recently, she launches into a tirade. American women live in the freest, most open-minded country on earth, yet seem bitter and disappointed.

…

As today’s generation of self-styled feminist women suggests, limitless freedom has not brought the happiness they assumed it would, and as they confront life’s realities, anger is replacing hope. [Acculturated, 6/27/16]

Judge has published racist writings about Black people, including a piece in which he claimed that Black teenagers in the Washington D.C. area have “absolutely no impulse control”

Judge wrote a widely derided racist column about his assumption that a Black person stole his bike. [New York magazine, 4/9/12, Gawker, 4/9/12, The Daily Caller, 4/9/12]

Judge complained about “swarms” of “cacophonously loud” Black teenagers causing problems in the upscale D.C. neighborhood Georgetown on Halloween. Writing for The Daily Caller, Judge shared observations from visiting Georgetown on Halloween 2011, arguing that “we just don’t have the guts to speak honestly about the issue of unsupervised black teenagers from broken homes and the havoc they can cause”:

At 9:42 on Halloween night, I sent myself an email. It read: “Halloween shooting.” I had just walked a few blocks from Wisconsin and M Streets in the heart of Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got shot, most likely a black teenager. It was so obvious what was going to happen that I wanted to just email myself a note. There was simply no way, after what I had just seen, that someone was not going to get killed; I think I wanted to predict it just out of sheer frustration. We all know what the problem is. But we just don’t have the guts to speak honestly about the issue of unsupervised black teenagers from broken homes and the havoc they can cause — to themselves and others.

Just before 11:00 p.m., 90 minutes after my email, a black teenager was shot on 28th and M Streets in Georgetown. He is in critical condition.

…

There were swarms of loud — and I mean cacophonously loud — teenagers drifting through downtown Georgetown. I was standing at Wisconsin and M Streets when a mass of about 50 of them poured across the street, ignoring the orders of a police officer who told them to stay behind the barriers set up for pedestrian safety. The kids were absolutely charged with energy; it was the kind of crackling atmosphere that happens before a fight. They spilled into the parking lot of the Riggs Bank. I followed them. On the other side of the parking lot was another group of black kids, mostly males. They were intently telling one of their friends to “not get involved.” “Those guys have guns!” one of them shouted. It was 8:30. On a Monday night. The PC police will have me over the spit, of course, but liberalism has cost so many lives that I don’t care anymore. The fact is, there were not hordes of white teens and preteens roaming through Georgetown on Halloween.

…

In all of that, no one would have the guts to tell the truth. It was not Asians or whites or Indians who were wilding in Georgetown. It was black teenagers. Illegitimacy and fatherlessness in black urban areas like Washington, D.C. has created an entire class of youth who have been weaned on gangster culture and have absolutely no impulse control. [The Daily Caller, 11/1/11]

Judge wrote that Obama was “clearly unqualified” to be president but got the job because of affirmative action. In a 2013 Daily Caller column, Judge wrote, “Obama is a poster child for affirmative action. Rather than relying on his own wit or intelligence, he gamed the system, getting into schools and getting jobs — including the one he has now — that he is clearly unqualified for.” [The Daily Caller, 8/20/13]

Judge published an anti-gay column at The Daily Caller

Defending Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s homophobia, Judge compared marriage equality to incest and polygamy and said promiscuity by gay men “led to AIDS.” From a December 2013 opinion piece:

Liberals keep telling us that all that matters is love, but then can’t answer the question of why a father couldn’t then marry his daughter, or why two brothers can’t marry each other. Or why six people can’t get married. They have officially moved to fantasyland, and are trying to drag the rest of us there also.

…

We simply are not allowed to talk about certain things at the risk of our jobs and reputations. One is human anatomy, another is the problem of promiscuity in the gay community. I saw this firsthand when I worked at a record store in a predominantly gay part of Washington, D.C. in the 1980s. The store was right next to a gay bar, and the bizarre and dangerous behavior I would see spilling out from that bar to the street filled me with pity and sadness. There were transvestites, drug addicts, public sex, men I saw each week with a different partner. This kind of recklessness was documented in the film “Gay Sex in the 70s.” I didn’t think that any intellectually honest person would deny that this was a problem in the gay communities, and led to AIDS. It would be like denying that in late 19th century New York there was a crime, alcohol and hygiene problem amongst the immigrant Irish — my people. There was. Pretending there wasn’t didn’t make it so. [The Daily Caller, 12/26/13]

Header image by Melissa Joskow / Media Matters

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