What if Kavanaugh Had Gone the Contrition Route?

I get why Republicans are applauding Trump for not withdrawing the Kavanaugh nomination.  They see it as standing up for bullies (a thing that would be more admirable if they didn't so often express admiration of Trump for being a bully).  They also feared that any replacement would walk into the same buzz saw.  And they are certainly right the Democrats would have been even more outraged -- and even some Republicans might have disassociated themselves from him -- if Kavanaugh had directly attacked Christine Ford right after her compelling testimony.  (That has not stopped some from doing so as the memory of her testimony becomes more distant).  And I have considerable sympathy with the view that the statute of limitations has run on youthful indiscretions, and that if we make a spotless adolescence a requirement for office we are going to shrink the pool of candidates inordinately.

I suppose I should also give Kavanaugh a little grudging respect for knowing not to go too far.  Saying:

This whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with apparent pent-up anger about president trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my judicial record. Revenge on behalf of the Clintons and millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups. This is a circus. The consequences will extend long past my nomination. The consequences will be with us for decades. This grotesque, character assassination will dissuade confident and good people of all political persuasions from serving our country and as we all know in the political system of the early 2000s, what goes around comes around.

is utterly inappropriate in a Supreme Court nominee, but it fires up the Republican base.  If he had thrown in comments about Soros or the Deep State, some moderate Republicans might have seen belief in paranoid conspiracy theories as disqualifying.

But Republicans are wrong to say that attacking the Democrats, attaching Ford, or withdrawing from the nomination were the only options.  Another option is what might be called the Clarence Thomas option -- same anger, but minus the partisanship.  Can't find the link, but that appears to have been what the first draft of Kavanaugh's speech did.  He later reworked it to make it more partisan.  Would Democratic reaction have been any different if Kavanaugh had expressed the anger minus the partisanship?  I'd guess the outrage volume would have been a little lower, but not a lot.

What if he had gone the contrition route?  What if he admitted the obvious, that he did binge drink in high school and college, and that he did engage in the sort of rowdy behavior that binge drinking is mostly an excuse for?  What if he acknowledged that his drunken rowdiness did involve sexual horseplay of the kind Christine Ford and Deborah Ramirez described, and that it was most certainly in bad taste, but never malicious and, so far as he was aware until Dr. Ford came forward, always consensual.  What if he had described -- in extremely delicate terms so as not to seem to be victim-blaming -- the sort of women who were regular parts of that scene, and who thought horseplay of that kind was harmless fun.  Acknowledge that it was juvenile and selfish never to consider that there might be women who did not see his horseplay in such terms.  Emphatically deny any attempt to harm or coerce anyone and offer profound apologies if any women mistook his intentions.*  Unleash all his understandable anger on Michael Avenatti for promoting outrageous lies.  (That probably wouldn't alienate Democrats too much; many of them have been quite critical of Avenatti as well).

Then explain that he came to recognize how juvenile and offensive his behavior had been, even if he did not realize it had actually harmed anyone.  Explain that he made up for it by showing extra respect for women during his mature career.  Point out that there are zero complaints about his behavior as a lawyer or judge.  Angrily declare that the statute of limitations has run on youthful indiscretions and that stigmatizing forever anyhow who engaged in them is too harsh and unforgiving a standard for one whose adult conduct has been exemplary.

What would have happened in that case?  Well, Kavenaugh would have been confirmed.  I have no doubt that it would have secured the vote of every Republican in the Senate, along with Joe Manchin and probably several other red state Democrats.  The confirmation margin would have been narrow but respectable.  This is not to say that all Democrats would have been satisfied.  Many would have expressed outrage that Kavanaugh couldn't tell consensual from non-consensual horseplay and some would accuse him of blaming the victim.  But I have no doubt he would have been confirmed, with more Democratic votes that he got now.

But that wouldn't polarize and inflame partisan tensions the way Kavanaugh's actual speech did.  Which I assume is the real point.

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*And I will add here that I do think this is the most likely explanation of what happened.  Mark Judge and Brett Kavanaugh were stronger than Christine Blasey and they outnumbered her two to one.  If they had really meant business, I don't think she would have gotten away so easily.  But if she was 15 and not used to that scene she might very well have thought they meant business.  Kavanaugh's failure to remember this episode is probably not so much an alcoholic blackout as simply that similar horseplay incidents were so common -- and usually consensual -- that he can't be expected to remember them all.  That his memory was clouded by alcohol was probably also a factor.