Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)

A smear, pure and simple

- Marc A. Thiessen Columnist

Senate Democrats seeking to derail Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination knew they had a problem. In other prominent cases of the #MeToo era, multiple victims had come forward to corroborat­e each other’s stories and present a pattern of predatory behavior.

But in Kavanaugh’s case, not only was there no corroborat­ion for Christine Blasey Ford’s accusation­s, no other women had come forward to accuse him of misconduct.

Democrats needed another victim.

Enter, Deborah Ramirez, a former Yale classmate of Kavanaugh’s.

She apparently didn’t want to accuse Kavanaugh of exposing himself to her at a college party, but as Ronan Farrow, coauthor of the New Yorker article with Jane Mayer in which Ramirez makes her stunning accusation, admitted on ABC News’s “Good Morning America,” she “came forward because Senate Democrats began looking at this claim. She did not flag this for those Democrats.”

Why didn’t she want to accuse Kavanaugh? Maybe it’s because she wasn’t sure it was him.

Ramirez, the New Yorker said, was “hesitant to speak publicly, partly because her memories contained gaps because she had been drinking at the time of the alleged incident,” the article said. She told the magazine that during the party “she was on the floor, foggy and slurring her words.”

The New York Times, which also looked into her allegation­s, writes that before coming forward, Ramirez “contacted former Yale classmates asking if they recalled the incident and told some of them that she could not be certain Mr. Kavanaugh was the one who exposed himself.”

Given her hesitancy, surely the New Yorker found some eyewitness corroborat­ion before going to press? Nope. “The New Yorker has not confirmed with other eyewitness­es that Kavanaugh was present at the party,” the article said. The New York Times reports that it also tried to verify Ramirez’s account and could not.

In fact, two of those allegedly in attendance during the incident disputed Ramirez’s account. The New Yorker reported that “one of the male classmates who Ramirez said egged on Kavanaugh denied any memory of the party,” and another said, “I have zero recollecti­on.”

The article continued, “In a statement, two of those male classmates who Ramirez alleged were involved in the incident, the wife of a third male student she said was involved, and one other classmate, Dan Murphy, disputed Ramirez’s account of events.”

Yet, despite these denials, her own admitted uncertaint­y and the failure of a single witness to back her story, the New Yorker went ahead and published her sensationa­l, hesitant, uncorrobor­ated account anyway — a stunning breach of journalist­ic ethics.

This was a story even the New York Times deemed not fit to print. It is a smear, pure and simple.

There is no pattern here of bad behavior by Kavanaugh toward women. The only pattern of bad behavior is the Democrats’ shameful willingnes­s to destroy a person’s reputation based on unsubstant­iated allegation­s. This new attack on Kavanaugh reeks of desperatio­n.

There is no evidence to back Ramirez’s claims, just as no evidence has emerged to corroborat­e Ford’s account.

None of the people Ford named, man or woman, has confirmed that the gathering in question took place at all, much less that any assault occurred.

So the question for the Senate is this: Is the new standard for those in public life that accusation­s of misconduct with no corroborat­ion are enough to destroy someone’s reputation and career?

Every sensible senator — and every sensible human being for that matter — should quake at the thought.

As Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., told Fox News on Monday, “There has to be something more than an allegation.”

He’s right. If allegation­s without evidence are enough to kill Kavanaugh’s nomination then no one is safe — including the senators who will decide his fate.

 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States