Great article. I posted half of it below but it's worth reading the entire thing.
For the first time since Donald Trump entered the political fray, I find myself grateful that he's in it. I'm reluctant to admit it and astonished to say it....
I'm grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy and dangerous standard-setting deployed by opponents of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. I'm grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life, and never more so than in the face of sly moral bullying. I'm grateful because he's a big fat hammer fending off a razor-sharp dagger.
A few moments have crystallized my view over the past few days....
The first moment was a remark by a friend. "I'd rather be accused of murder," he said, "than of sexual assault." I feel the same way. One can think of excuses for killing a man; none for assaulting a woman. But if that's true, so is this: Falsely accusing a person of sexual assault is nearly as despicable as sexual assault itself. It inflicts psychic, familial, reputational and professional harms that can last a lifetime. This is nothing to sneer at.
The second moment, connected to the first: "Boo hoo hoo. Brett Kavanaugh is not a victim." That's the title of a column in the Los Angeles Times, which suggests that the possibility of Kavanaugh's innocence is "infinitesimal." Yet false allegations of rape, while relatively rare, are at least five times as common as false accusations of other types of crime, according to academic literature.
Since when did the possibility of innocence become, for today's liberals, something to wave off with an archly unfeeling "boo hoo"?
A third moment, connected to the second: Listening to Cory Booker explain on Tuesday that "ultimately" it doesn't matter if Kavanaugh is "guilty or innocent," because "enough questions" had been raised that it was time to "move on to another candidate."
For the first time since Donald Trump entered the political fray, I find myself grateful that he's in it. I'm reluctant to admit it and astonished to say it....
I'm grateful because Trump has not backed down in the face of the slipperiness, hypocrisy and dangerous standard-setting deployed by opponents of Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court. I'm grateful because ferocious and even crass obstinacy has its uses in life, and never more so than in the face of sly moral bullying. I'm grateful because he's a big fat hammer fending off a razor-sharp dagger.
A few moments have crystallized my view over the past few days....
The first moment was a remark by a friend. "I'd rather be accused of murder," he said, "than of sexual assault." I feel the same way. One can think of excuses for killing a man; none for assaulting a woman. But if that's true, so is this: Falsely accusing a person of sexual assault is nearly as despicable as sexual assault itself. It inflicts psychic, familial, reputational and professional harms that can last a lifetime. This is nothing to sneer at.
The second moment, connected to the first: "Boo hoo hoo. Brett Kavanaugh is not a victim." That's the title of a column in the Los Angeles Times, which suggests that the possibility of Kavanaugh's innocence is "infinitesimal." Yet false allegations of rape, while relatively rare, are at least five times as common as false accusations of other types of crime, according to academic literature.
Since when did the possibility of innocence become, for today's liberals, something to wave off with an archly unfeeling "boo hoo"?
A third moment, connected to the second: Listening to Cory Booker explain on Tuesday that "ultimately" it doesn't matter if Kavanaugh is "guilty or innocent," because "enough questions" had been raised that it was time to "move on to another candidate."