Two pieces by Quin, at The American Spectator, from the week between hearings and confirmation. Follow the links in the headlines to see the full columns.
Ford’s timeline doesn’t make sense:
Even with Christine Blasey Ford being favored by every unwritten rule about assessing sex-related allegations, her stories fall almost completely apart under rational analysis.
According to today’s rules that are politically correct (and humane and rational, if not taken too far), the female accuser enjoys the initial benefit of the doubt, the accused male doesn’t. She is assumed to be truthful; he is assumed culpable. She must merely allege an offense; he must convince us it didn’t happen.
From his end, any “culture of drinking and promiscuity,” or state of inebriation, is not only relevant, but damning; for her, those elements are off limits for discussion, even for purposes not of assessing moral fault but just for determining her memory’s validity.
Likewise, Brett Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook is to be closely parsed for anything condemnatory; Ford’s yearbook is not to be mentioned.
Even mid-sized discrepancies in her account are excused because, well, trauma messes with memories. But every single, minor, apparent variance in his testimony — even if he himself said things a few sentences before or after that gave a fuller, accurate picture — is treated as evidence of perjury. He can be grilled to a crisp, but if she is “cross-examined” in an even remotely challenging way, it’s an abomination.
Even so, Ford’s story appears more and more like a case of mistaken timing and identity — not exactly unheard of, for someone who herself has written professional papers touting “self-hypnosis,” including “creat[ion of] artificial situations,” even though the hypnosis can cause “contamination” of memory….
A reasonable, objective, establishment media would have spent far more time than it has in delving into Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s background and credibility, and her veracity under oath — especially if they think it relevant to endlessly parse Brett Kavanaugh’s high school yearbook, jokey memos about Beach Week, and collegiate throwing of ice from a barroom glass.
Granted, there is an important line, not to be crossed, between rational examination of relevant information and, on the other hand, blaming or bullying the putative victim. Yet the examination mustbe done. The accused cannot be automatically assumed to be guilty. This isn’t just a legal principle, but a moral one. A false allegation, even if it never reached a court of law, can ruin reputations and even lives.
Yet most of the media has acted as if the only one whose veracity and character are legitimate grounds for investigation is the one accused of heinous acts. It is trite but very true to refute that idiocy by reference to the accused Salem witches, the Duke lacrosse team, the University of Virginia fraternity, or the fictional Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird….
