The NYT lobs a confusing new issue into the Kavanaugh controversy: the phrase "Renate Alumni" in the yearbook at Kavanaugh's high school.

It's really hard to summarize "Kavanaugh’s Yearbook Page Is ‘Horrible, Hurtful’ to a Woman It Named." My first question is: Who wrote the words in the yearbook? If not Brett Kavanaugh, why must I understand this? And why is the NYT choosing to dilute the carefully built up allegation made by Christine Blasey Ford? Is that allegation fading somehow? Is the NYT trying to get hits after it passed up the Deborah Ramirez story that had us all reading The New Yorker last Sunday?

I don't want to quote too much of the article, but I can't paraphrase what I can't understand, so forgive me:

The word “Renate” appears at least 14 times in Georgetown Preparatory School’s 1983 yearbook, on individuals’ pages and in a group photo of nine football players, including Judge Kavanaugh, who were described as the “Renate Alumni.” It is a reference to Renate Schroeder, then a student at a nearby Catholic girls’ school.

Two of Judge Kavanaugh’s classmates say the mentions of Renate were part of the football players’ unsubstantiated boasting about their conquests. “They were very disrespectful, at least verbally, with Renate,” said Sean Hagan, a Georgetown Prep student at the time, referring to Judge Kavanaugh and his teammates. “I can’t express how disgusted I am with them, then and now.”

So Sean Hagan seems to have brought this tale to the NYT and we're handed his characterizations of what it all means. Who is he? The material seems too minimal to matter, so you have to tell us why it matters, and Sean Hagan is quoted. That's it! Well, who's he? What are his interests? And, again, did Kavanaugh write the yearbook text?!

This month, Renate Schroeder Dolphin joined 64 other women who..., signed a letter to the leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which...  stated that “he has behaved honorably and treated women with respect.”

So suddenly Schroeder is Dolphin. I'll just guess that's her married name. This article is carelessly written.

“I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago,” Ms. Dolphin said in a statement to The New York Times. “I don’t know what ‘Renate Alumnus’ actually means. I can’t begin to comprehend what goes through the minds of 17-year-old boys who write such things, but the insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way. I will have no further comment.”

What was said to her that made her react like that. She can't understand it, but she's also horrified by it, and she won't talk about it anymore. Was she given the Sean Hagan interpretation and shocked and that's how the NYT got her quote? And now we the NYT readers are supposed to feel her shock, because look at what she said? And she's not saying anything more.

Alexandra Walsh, a lawyer for Judge Kavanaugh, said in a statement: “Judge Kavanaugh was friends with Renate Dolphin in high school. He admired her very much then, and he admires her to this day. “Judge Kavanaugh and Ms. Dolphin attended one high school event together and shared a brief kiss good night following that event,” the statement continued. “They had no other such encounter. The language from Judge Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook refers to the fact that he and Ms. Dolphin attended that one high school event together and nothing else.”

Ms. Dolphin said she had never kissed Judge Kavanaugh. “I think Brett must have me confused with someone else, because I never kissed him,” she said through her lawyer.

Well, there's a factual discrepancy. Kavanaugh (if his lawyer has it right) believes he kissed a girl who believes he did not. It seems someone at the yearbook collected all the names of boys who said they'd kissed the same girl and made a joke out of it. But was Kavanaugh involved in the yearbook making? And does this really matter now? Dolphin had good enough memories to have signed the letter. Now, she's mad about the yearbook, and we're supposed to hold that against him?

Four of the men who were pictured with Judge Kavanaugh in a photo captioned “Renate Alumni” said it was simply a reference to their dating or going to dances with Ms. Dolphin.... Some of Judge Kavanaugh’s high school peers said there was a widespread culture at the time of objectifying women....

Bill Barbot, who was a freshman at Georgetown Prep when Judge Kavanaugh was a senior, said Judge Kavanaugh and his clique were part of the school’s “fratty” culture.

Oh! We're going to listen to the freshman's ideas about the seniors! And why are we hearing from Bill Barbot? Who is he? How did the NYT find him? And why him and not one of 100 other possibilities among all the boys in all the years when Kavanaugh went to high school?

“There was a lot of talk and presumably a lot of action about sexual conquest with girls,” Mr. Barbot said.

Presumably!!! Such extreme dilution. A freshman remembers how seniors, in general, looked to him 35 years ago.

Ms. Dolphin was a subject of that braggadocio, according to Mr. Hagan and another classmate, who requested anonymity because he fears retribution. 

Again, who is Hagan? But, look, he's bolstered by some anonymous person. And the subject is that Dolphin was a girl boys bragged about. Not Kavanaugh, specifically, but, you know, it was the sort of thing that happened. Such a weak dilution of a hint of wrongness.

“She should be offended,” Mr. Hagan said of Ms. Dolphin. “I was completely astounded when I saw she signed that letter” on Judge Kavanaugh’s behalf.

Hagan Hagan Hagan. Who the hell is he and why is the NYT running with this? It's such a weak effort at piling on the attacks that it makes the earlier attacks seem weaker.

The NYT offers this effort at defending Kavanaugh:

“These guys weren’t any different than other boys high schools across the country,” said Suzanne Matan, a friend of Judge Kavanaugh’s from their high school days. “And I chose to hang out with those boys and many other girls did, too, because they were fun, and they were safe, and they were respectful.”

I assume many readers will interpret that first sentence to mean "boys will be boys" — a damning excuse — despite the various kind — somewhat kind — words.

Finally, an answer to my question:

The Georgetown Prep yearbook’s personal pages were designed and written by the individual students, according to alumni. A faculty adviser reviewed the pages.

If that's true, it's important. Why is this crucial fact buried in the article? I'm writing about it as I go along, so I don't know what I'd have written if that had appeared in the beginning. I note that Kavanaugh's page says "Renate Alumnius." That's a typo/misspelling isn't it, "alumnius"? Isn't that evidence that he did not write it? When I was in high school, you filled out a form offering info to the  students who made the yearbook and they used that to write what they, in the end, chose.

There's more to the article — things written on other boys' pages, a caption on a photo of the football team (including Kavanaugh), a statement by 4 boys in that photo (saying "Renate" referred to "innocent dates or dance partners" and criticizing the NYT for its "twisted and forced... shabby journalism"), etc. — and that's it for this new puff of smoke.