Two things struck many viewers about Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s testimony in the Senate hearings last week: his frequent references to beer and his intermittent tears, sometimes overlapping in the same moments. His performance exemplified the colloquial American saying, “to cry in your beer.” The Collins English Dictionary defines the expression as “to lament or complain in a maudlin manner,” The Free Dictionary as “to feel sorry for oneself; to bemoan one’s fate in life.”
This unprecedented occurrence—a candidate for the Supreme Court invoking beer over and over and sporadically shedding tears in a public hearing—has led me to review his testimony in this light. The quotations of his interviewers are recorded verbatim below, while I’ve taken some liberties with Judge Kavanaugh’s words in order to call attention to this bizarre phenomenon.
RACHEL MITCHELL, STAFF COUNCIL: Dr. Ford has described you as being intoxicated at a party. Did you consume alcohol during your high school years?
KAVANAUGH: Yes, we drank beer and we cried in our beer. My friends and I, the boys and girls. Yes, we cried in our beer. I liked beer. Still like beer. Still like crying in my beer. We drank beer and we cried in it. The drinking age, as I noted, was 18, so the seniors were legal, senior year in high school, people were legal to drink. And we were legal to cry even when we were under 18. And we — yeah, we drank beer, and I said sometimes — sometimes probably had too many beers, shed lots of tears, and sometimes other people had too many beers, but not as many tears as me. I was a sloppy drinker.
MITCHELL: What do you…
KAVANAUGH: We drank beer and we cried in it. We liked beer and we cried our eyes out.
MITCHELL: What do you consider to be too many beers?
KAVANAUGH: I don’t know. You know, we — whatever the chart says, a blood-alcohol chart. But there’s no limit to how much you can cry in your beer.
MITCHELL: When you talked to Fox News the other night, you said that there were times in high school when people might have had too many beers on occasion. Does that include you?
KAVANAUGH: Sure… Too many beers but not too many tears.
MITCHELL: … So let’s talk about your time in high school… Did anyone ever tell you about something that happened in your presence that you didn’t remember during a time that you had been drinking?
KAVANAUGH: No, the — the — we drank beer and we cried in it, and you know, so — so did, I think, the vast majority of — of people our age at the time. But in any event, we drank beer and cried in it— and still do. In fact I’d love to have a beer right now so that I could weep in it. So whatever, you know…
SENATOR SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, D-R.I: … Mr. Kavanaugh… we are looking at the yearbook… The vomiting that you reference in the Ralph Club reference, [is] related to the consumption of alcohol?
KAVANAUGH: Senator, I was at the top of my class academically, busted my butt in school. Captain of the varsity basketball team. Got in Yale College. When I got into Yale College, got into Yale Law School. Worked my tail off.
WHITEHOUSE: And did the world “ralph” you used in your yearbook… Did it relate to alcohol? You haven’t answered that.
KAVANAUGH: I like beer. I like beer and I like crying in it. I don’t know if you do…
WHITEHOUSE: OK.
KAVANAUGH: … Do you like beer, Senator, or not? And do you like crying in it?
WHITEHOUSE: Um, next…
KAVANAUGH: What do you like to drink?
WHITEHOUSE: Next one is…
KAVANAUGH: Senator, what do you like to drink and what do you like to cry in, to truly weep in?…
WHITEHOUSE: “Devil’s triangle?”
KAVANAUGH: Drinking game.
WHITEHOUSE: How’s it played?
KAVANAUGH: Three glasses of beer in a triangle. You drink your beer and cry in it, cry your eyes out, bawl, wail because I can’t believe I’m making this up…
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR, D-MINN: … Drinking is one thing, but the concern is about truthfulness, and in your written testimony, you said sometimes you had too many drinks. Was there ever a time when you drank so much that you couldn’t remember what happened…
KAVANAUGH: No, I — no. I remember what happened, and I think you’ve probably had beers, Senator, and — and so I…
KLOBUCHAR: So you’re saying there’s never been a case where you drank so much that you didn’t remember what happened the night before, or part of what happened.
KAVANAUGH: It’s — you’re asking about, you know, blackout. I don’t know. Have you?
KLOBUCHAR: Could you answer the question, Judge? I just — so you — that’s not happened. Is that your answer?
KAVANAUGH: Yeah, and I’m curious if you have ever cried in your beer, whimpered, sniveled, cried your eyes out, squalled, wept rivers of tears the way I’d love to do right now.
KLOBUCHAR: I have no drinking problem, Judge…
KAVANAUGH: Yeah, nor do I…