Harass morass

Talk about getting caught with your pants down. Exposés on predatory perv Harvey Weinstein have unleashed a tide of lurid allegations against some of the most powerful men in showbiz and politics, from Kevin Spacey and Charlie Rose to Al Franken and John Conyers. So what do the highest-profile men’s magazines have to say on the subject? Not so much, it turns out.

GQ likes to style itself as a beacon of liberal moral authority, so we had guessed that the December/ January issue would suit up for a takedown of the famous predators among us. Instead, Editor-in-Chief Jim Nelson churns out yet another of his pearl-clutching columns about President Trump.

Completely ignoring seamy sex allegations that have engulfed Democrats and Republicans alike, Nelson takes his Chicken Little routine with Trump to a new level. Every morning, “I run to my phone to see if the republic is still standing,” Nelson sweatily confides, “to see if [Trump] has summoned the nukes from North Korea out of their locust sleep.”

Esquire Editor-in-Chief Jay Fielden at least manages not to miss the fact that American males are caught in the middle of an historic reckoning over sexual misconduct. Nevertheless, he elects to dwell not on Weinstein, but on Hugh Hefner. Suffice it to say, a gentleman who reads Esquire might question the propriety of kicking a man in his grave, or even call it cowardly.

But after admitting he pawed and ogled Playboy centerfolds like a “Gollum” when he was 13, Fielden insists that he promptly “grew up,” and has, ever since, been woke to the tribulations of “friends, colleagues, girlfriends, wives, sisters, daughters and mothers” who have suffered at the hands of “adolescent narcissists” like Hefner.

“It’s imperative that open secrets don’t become another excuse for closing our eyes,” Fielden writes in a workmanlike conclusion, finally getting around to the subject of Weinstein. But after reading so many lines about Hefner, as well as deplorable “satyrs” like Wilt Chamberlain and Charlie Sheen who boasted about bedding women by the thousands, you get the impression Fielden is only lately waking up to the finer points of the issue.

Elsewhere, both magazines have pieces on John McCain — painting the US senator in a decidedly independent light. Nevertheless, both also seem to plead, “Look at us — we write about conservatives, too!”

GQ calls Colin Kaepernick “Citizen of the Year,” in an article that’s heavily sympathetic — unaccountably so, some might argue — to the former NFL quarterback who has been all-but-blackballed from the league after jump-starting the kneeling controversy.

We’re guessing one or both of these magazines will eventually get around to in-depth, 3,000-word features on predation in Hollywood and politics. But their current mumbling and stumbling just doesn’t look smart.