Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was questioned Thursday over an alleged sexual assault involving Christine Blasey Ford. (AP)
The news that Brett Kavanaugh had a new accuser landed with a thud on Sunday night. That she had told her story to the New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow certainly seemed like the death knell for the Kavanaugh nomination.
Tough and meticulous, Pulitzer Prize winner Farrow had built up a reputation for being a serious journalist, especially when it came to telling the stories of the women assaulted, harassed and otherwise destroyed by powerful men.
“This is another serious, credible, and disturbing allegation against Brett Kavanaugh. It should be fully investigated,” Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono, of Hawaii told Farrow and the article’s co-author Jane Mayer.
Except it wasn’t. Disturbing though the new accusation may be it is not serious and it is not credible. It should be dismissed by the public at large and those pushing it should apologize to Judge Kavanaugh and his family. Farrow and Mayer have lost a great deal of credibility in publishing it at all.
It’s much harder for women to be believed at all when accusations like this get an airing.
Deborah Ramirez attended Yale with Kavanaugh and wants her story told. What that story is is unclear to even her.
Farrow and Mayer write: “In her initial conversations with The New Yorker, she was reluctant to characterize Kavanaugh’s role in the alleged incident with certainty. After six days of carefully assessing her memories and consulting with her attorney, Ramirez said that she felt confident enough of her recollections to say that she remembers Kavanaugh had exposed himself at a drunken dormitory party, thrust his penis in her face, and caused her to touch it without her consent as she pushed him away.”
Thirty-five years after the alleged incident, Ramirez was unsure of what happened. But thirty-five years and six days later she somehow become more certain.
But even her current story is incredibly hazy. Did Kavanaugh do what Ramirez alleges? She’s not actually sure!
She saw him adjust his pants and assumed he’s the one who committed the act. “I’m confident about the pants coming up, and I’m confident about Brett being there.” She doesn’t remember much aside from her embarrassment.
Farrow and Mayer write “Ramirez said that what has stayed with her most forcefully is the memory of laughter at her expense from Kavanaugh and the other students. “It was kind of a joke,” she recalled. “And now it’s clear to me it wasn’t a joke.””
But it is a joke, a terrible joke that an accuser who is not sure of her own story is still given a platform by prominent #MeToo journalists.
Ramirez cannot say that the person she is accusing actually is the one who did what she is alleging. But Brett Kavanaugh is tarred with a “2nd accuser” all the same.
Six classmates who Ramirez said would be able to substantiate her story, one of them her college best friend, have categorically denied, to Farrow and Mayer, that any such incident took place. To counterbalance this actual evidence, Farrow and Mayer quote several people who, while not present at the time of the alleged incident, find Ramirez generally believable.
This is not journalism. This is a bizarre political stage show where the actors are all working toward the same curtain call.
For those of us who had been waiting to hear Kavanaugh’s original accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, testify before forming an opinion on her accusations, the new piece was a gut punch.
“Believe all women!” we’re told. But what about the women like Ramirez who are plainly not believable? Why do they still get splashy stories in the New Yorker?
It’s much harder for women to be believed at all when accusations like this get an airing.
We are all suspect, waiting to use the misplaced faith that people have in the female gender to our advantage. We aren’t strong, like modern society keeps assuring us we are, we are weak and able to be turned for political advantage as necessary.
In trying to destroy one man, Farrow and Mayer end up destroying the reputation of all women.
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