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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom ideological culture

Riddle Us That

“Riddle me this,” William Rainford tweeted during the big national #MeToo civil war over the Senate’s confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “Why would the accuser of Kavanaugh take a polygraph, paid for by someone else and administered by private investigator in early August, if she wanted to remain anonymous and had no intention of reporting the alleged assault?”

Dr. Rainford, Dean of the National Catholic School of Social Service at the Catholic University of America, was on a roll.

“Swetnick is 55 y/​o. Kavanaugh is 52 y/​o,” began a now-​removed tweet about another accuser. “Since when do senior girls hang with freshmen boys? If it happened when Kavanaugh was a senior, Swetnick was an adult drinking with&by her admission, having sex with underage boys. In another universe, he would be victim & she the perp!”

Interesting questions. But for students at his university, enraging. Some were angered enough to walk out of class and demand his resignation.

Rainford was suspended and last week resigned as Dean.

Back in September, Will Rainford profusely expressed his contrition in a Cultural Revolution-​style statement: “My tweet suggested that [Julie Swetnick] was not a victim of sexual assault. I offer no excuse. It was impulsive and thoughtless and I apologize.”

Strange, then, that media coverage of this case fails to even mention that Swetnick and her attorney, Michael Avenatti, have now been referred to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution for making allegedly false statements to Congress.

Swetnick and Avenatti can, however, expect to receive better treatment than an administrator in an establishment of higher education who dares ask unpopular questions that trigger progressives.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 


N.B. This edition of Common Sense is condensed from last weekend’s Townhall column by Paul Jacob.

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Yesterday’s NOW

Once upon a time, the National Organization for Women winked to President Bill Clinton and scorned his accusers Paula Jones, Juanita Broaddrick, and others. This all came back to me while discussing powerful men sexually harassing and assaulting women, at Townhall yesterday.

NOW’s current president, Toni Van Pelt, spoke with the Washington Examiner regarding recent allegations against liberal Sen. Al Franken (D‑Minn.). Not to be outdone by the group’s partisan or pusillanimous past (take your pick), Van Pelt offered, “We could ask all of the men in Congress to resign, is that what you’re asking me?” 

She added, going all in, “You know that mostly all men do this kind of thing to women. It’s like saying there’s a good airline or a good bank, saying there’s some entity out there that is not sexist.”

Say what?

“That’s gender bias and stereotyping of the most egregious kind,” writes ethicist Jack Marshall at his Ethics Alarms blog. “I just expect the champions of equality, fairness, mutual respect and civility to believe in and live by the principles they claim so indignantly and self-​righteously to be fighting for.”

And not scapegoat all men. 

Yet NOW’s Madame Defarge declares: “They all should resign, every man in every industry.”

Marshall knows how to categorize such talk: “Under the definition of ‘hate group’ used by the Southern Poverty Law Center — ‘any group with beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people’ — Toni Van Pelt, speaking on behalf of her organization, has demonstrated that the National Organization for Women belongs on its list.”

Blaming an entire sex, while excusing the actual abusers … should end NOW.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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