Topic: Media Research Center
One of the ways the Media Research Center has defended Brett Kavanaugh through the Supreme Court nomination process is to insist that teenage drinking, even to the level allegedly consumed by Kavanaugh that was testified to and hinted at, is totally normal and not unhealthy at all -- and tried to parse Kavanaugh's words to claim he really didn't get that drunk or that he didn't mislead anyone about his youthful drinking.
In a Sept. 27 post, Nicholas Fondacaro highlighted how Kavanuagh addressed "an accusation that he would routinely get blackout drunk. As nearly any college student can tell you, there is a vast difference between getting really hammered and getting blackout drunk."
Another Sept. 27 post by Clay Waters claimed that Kavanaugh's reportedly heavy drinking during college is "an aspect of college life hardly unique to Kavanaugh."
A post by Bill D'Agostino complained that MSNBC hosts was "comparing his statements in a Fox News interview to a portion of his sworn testimony submitted to the Committee" regarding college era drinking, further huffing that the hosts did not "share how attending church and focusing on school work might have precluded him from consuming too much alcohol on weekends."
D'Agostino followed up by grousing that another MSNBC host "donned her armchair psychologist’s hat and claimed that his highly emotional delivery proved that he was an abusive drunk." That's a funny claim given how many MRC employees are armchair mind-readers.
Jay Maxson touted how Kavanaugh's college friend Chris Dudley, a former pro basketball player, "vouch[ed] for Kavanaugh's character" and that Kavanaugh "never blacked out," adding: "Did he get inebriated sometimes? Yes. Did I? Yes. Just like every other college kid in America."
Fondacaro repeated his parsing defense in a Sept. 30 post: "But Kavanaugh admitted to being a heavy drinker during his late-high school and college years in his testimony. The Judge only contended he never got 'blackout drunk'. That’s a big difference, ask nearly any college student. "
Fondacaro returned in an Oct. 3 post to defending Kavanaugh from claims that he had portrayed himself as a "choir boy" in his Senate testimony: "Kavanaugh admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that he drank a lot in his youth and he used to do stupid things."
Fondacaro once more insisted there's a "huge difference" between drinking a lot and blacking out in an Oct. 5 post:
In both the Judge’s interview with Fox News and his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, he admitted that he drank heavily in his youth and did stupid things. That is fact.
Kavanaugh’s contention was that he never got “blackout drunk,” a huge difference. And no matter how many of Kavanaugh’s former Yale classmates told CNN that he “lied” about drinking a lot, it doesn’t change the fact that he did admit it and he’s the only one that would know if he “blacked out.”
Of course, the whole point of being blackout drunk is that you don't remember it, which would make Kavanaugh an decidedly imperfect authority on whether he did so or how he behaved while under that condition. Fondacaro surely knows that.
