Kavanaugh: 'This is ridiculous and from the twilight zone'
Judge Kavanaugh responds to the latest allegations from a third accuser.
Sexual misconduct has nothing to do with political ideology, party identification or occupation. It is wrong, regardless of whether it is committed by a Democrat, a Republican, a celebrity, a member of the clergy, a journalist, an executive or someone in another line of work.
Yet in their zeal to do absolutely anything to keep Judge Brett Kavanaugh off the Supreme Court, Democrats are treating unsubstantiated allegations about his conduct in high school and college as the Gospel truth. At the same time, they have forgiven serious sexual misconduct – proven and alleged – by Democratic men many years older and in positions of power.
The #MeToo movement is important and long overdue. No one – male or female, child or adult – should be forced to endure sexual harassment or assault, and all victims should be encouraged to speak up. But if this righteous movement for justice is allowed to be weaponized for the use of one political party it will implode.
Democrats might find the sketchy accusations against Kavanaugh to be politically useful now, but by overplaying their hand they are actually imperiling the #MeToo movement.
Regrettably, Democrats have a long history of protecting and supporting men accused of sexual misconduct.
President Clinton admitted to a sexual relationship from 1995 to 1997 with White House intern Monica Lewinksy in the Oval Office, yet Democrats successfully fought off an attempt to remove him from office.
But there were other cases in which Clinton denied wrongdoing. Juanita Broaddrick claims Clinton raped her in 1978. A former Arkansas state employee sued Clinton for allegedly exposing himself to her when he was governor of Arkansas. Kathleen Willey has alleged that Clinton fondled her breast and forced her hand up his crotch in 1993 in the Oval Office.
Allegations of sexual misconduct have been made about President John F. Kennedy. His brother, Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, also faced such accusations, and left the scene of an accident where a young woman traveling in his car died.
By turning this issue into a political values test (one where those on the progressive left are good, and all others are bad), Democrats have alienated at least half the country.
And Democratic U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison – vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic candidate for Minnesota attorney general – stands accused by ex-girlfriend Karen Monahan of physically and emotionally abusing her over a period of years. He has denied the allegations.
Democratic Rep. John Conyers of Michigan and Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota resigned from Congress after they were accused of sexual misconduct earlier this year. Both also denied wrongdoing.
And Imran Awan – the former IT aide to Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida and other House Democrats – was accused by multiple women who told police in Virginia he physically abused them and spied on them. One even said he kept her “as a slave.” I detailed these accusations in my recent book “Spies in Congress – Inside the Democrats’ Cover-Up Cyber Scandal.”
Awan recently pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges. Before his plea, Wasserman Schultz – the former chair of the Democratic National Committee – accused those with the gall to investigate Awan and everything he was up to in Congress as being guilty of “ethnic and religious profiling.”
I don’t know the truth about the accusations three women are now leveling at Kavanaugh from his high school and college years. But I know that the allegations are unsupported by any evidence except the allegations offered by his accusers, and that there is contradictory evidence.
The allegations include a new claim made Wednesday by attorney Michael Avenatti that a woman he identified as Julie Swetnick contends that Kavanaugh and a friend were present when she was raped. She did not explicitly accuse Kavanaugh of assaulting her.
Kavanaugh has categorically denied all the accusations against him – by Swetnick, by Christine Blasey Ford and by Deborah Ramirez. Ford alleges Kavanaugh groped her at a high school party and Ramirez has alleged Kavanaugh exposed himself to her when both were freshmen at Yale University.
In a new statement Wednesday responding to Swetnick’s claim, Kavanaugh said: “This is ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone. I don’t know who this is and this never happened.”
By embracing the weak accusations against Kavanaugh while ignoring far stronger evidence against prominent Democrats, Democrats are sinking the #MeToo movement in politics. They think this is an effective strategy that will hold together because they blame men in general, or at least manliness, for the alleged atrocities of a few.
That’s a convenient diagnosis for a political movement that views strong men as a constituency that mostly votes for the other team. It’s a clever way of turning the issue into a political weapon for the progressive left. It’s even a strategy for the left to weaken the very identity of the men who often vote for Republicans.
One problem with this sexist position is that if men believe they are guilty simply because they have Y chromosomes, then they have no incentive to be part of the solution. And it defies logic to say that women tell the truth 100 percent of the time and are incapable of making a false allegation against a man.
Also, if men go along with this anti-masculine logic and so decide to weaken themselves, aren’t they then less likely to boldly take on someone up the chain of command who might be guilty of sexual misconduct against one or more employees? Weak men, after all, don’t stand up to powerful men.
By turning this issue into a political values test (one where those on the progressive left are good, and all others are bad), Democrats have alienated at least half the country. One half of the electorate can virtue signal to each other, while the other half thinks what the hell!
Of course, anyone who can reason knows that by definition a gentleman doesn’t behave the way the men caught in the teeth of the #MeToo movement allegedly did. They also know that any young man who behaves in that way must be corrected fast and preferably by the men in their family and life.
Given the obvious fact that strong men must be a part of the solution, why are so many in the media and popular culture unwilling to make an obvious distinction between the men who sexually harass or even rape women and the gentlemen out there who respect women? Don’t men now, more than ever, need good ideals and role models to live up to?
Men, after all, to be all they can be, still need to be heroes in their stories (just as women do); they need to be gentlemen and stand-up guys, not weaklings afraid to boldly speak and act, lest they be guilty of “mansplaining,” “microaggressions,” or actual sexual misconduct.
Men need to know how to gallantly navigate a world where men and women work together and compete in offices with one another. Men need to know how to be true gentlemen.
By instead arguing that manliness (what they call “toxic masculinity”) is to blame, those on the left aren’t just trying to weaken men – they are also dividing women politically.
Suddenly, strong conservative women are treated as enablers of bad behavior in men. The #MeToo movement thus politically weaponized for progressives alienates not only men but also a lot of women.
The important #MeToo movement can’t long survive within that dishonest political litmus test. Such treatment will divide and destroy the movement.
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