Jon Lovitz, Trump, Kavanaugh, and Harvard
We are going to see Jon Lovitz on Saturday evening at UC Irvine at the Barclay Theater. Few people know that he once was listed as UCI’s most popular alumnus. He perfected the part of the compulsive exaggerator and The Pathological Liar Tommy Flanagan on Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1990. I just saw a rerun on TV of his movie “Mom and Dad Save the World” (1992), where he plays the Emperor Tod Spengo on another planet who is all about his people forcibly adoring him and saying wonderful things about him. Those who don’t are “fired”. I imagine his show will point out the prescience of his characters to those of Donald Trump as the master of “The Apprentice”, and now as President. His key line after lying was “Yeah! That’s the ticket!”
Jon Lovitz was a drama major at UC Irvine from 1975-1979. We now have over 170,000 alumni. Lovitz is listed among 11 famous alumni in the Arts. We now have lists for seven categories of outstanding alumni. Perhaps the most well known today is David Benioff, M.F.A. ‘99, Game of Thrones co-creator and showrunner.
Back to President Trump, he was at the UN earlier in the week, and was laughed at (he claims laughed with) when he told the General Assembly that more was accomplished so far in his presidency than in maybe any other Presidencies (yeah, that’s the ticket!). He also cast aspersions on George Washington this week, and not for the cherry tree, as if he was jealous of him.
I am sure that Judge Brett Kavanaugh with his distinguished academic and judicial history is an important lecturer for Harvard Law to have, or he would not have taught there for several years. Having said that, after his performance of tears and belligerence and self-righteous (?) anger, he really should be teaching Drama at Harvard, or anywhere else. How does this complete a circle with Lovitz and Trump? Fact finders have easily found that he exaggerated or misled all references to witnesses in his testimony, a la Lovitz. Kavanaugh spent several days preparing at the White House for his testimony. I am guessing that there is where he learned to claim it was a Democratic plot with Democratic funding that he was fighting against.
Even though Trump was at the UN, the imaginary conspiracy plot is really from Trump’s alternate reality, or maybe others now in the White House. The emphasis on the Clinton’s (Kavanaugh was their nemesis in the President Clinton impeachment), reminds me of Trumps’ insistence on the “Lock Her Up” cheer which he continues to promote, as well as continuing demands that Attorney General Jeff Sessions investigate and prosecute her. Where does Kavanaugh fit in here? Every time Trump does these things, he violates the Fifth Amendment, which guarantees Due Process. Judge Kavanaugh of the DC Circuit Appeals Court has the second highest judicial level job in the US, and he violated Due Process and the Fifth Amendment in his unsupported conspiracy charges against Dr. Ford, her lawyers, his other accusers, the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the Democrats in the Senate. Kavanaugh was likely chosen first by Trump by his belief that a sitting President could not be distracted from his or her work by being charged for criminal acts (and Trump’s recurring dream of killing someone on Fifth Avenue, in front of Trump’s Tower, and getting away with it.)
Finally to Harvard. How can they hire a Law School lecturer who just so grossly violated the Fifth Amendment and Due Process, and who has the weight and reputation of his Judgeship and the US judicial system on his shoulders? His personal attacks on a female Senator on the committee about drinking was a severe reflection of the abuse of women for which he is being charged. I have gone to many talks by potential faculty at our University. In fact, in all of the many lectures which I have attended at UCI, or at our associated OLLI lifelong learning, or in my lifetime at universities since 1959 (59 years worth), I have never seen a lecturer with the lies and belligerence that Judge Kavanaugh showed. Such an aggressive person would probably even be banned from the campus. Nobody would ever be hired on our faculty who attacked his questioners like Kavanaugh did. If he loses his lectureship at Harvard, he has only his performance before the world to blame.
Judge Kavanaugh’s conspiracy theories, lies and exaggerations brings us full circle to Jon Lovitz’s characters.
