“Credible” allegations, revisited
I’ve previously written about the problems with believing allegations that are merely “credible,” and I’d like to revisit that for a moment.
Yesterday and today I’ve had on ongoing back-and-forth with commenter “Bill” that you can follow by starting here. My very last comment to Bill in that thread so far is this one:
You might think I’m picking on you. It’s not personal, but this sort of rush to judgment has always made me angry…If that sounds harsh, sorry, but I’ve seen it too many times and I’ve seen it destroy people.
Not just in the political arena by any means. I’m thinking of people such as the Ramseys.
The Ramseys were the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, the little girl who was murdered in Colorado back in December of 1996. The media immediately went into high gear and covered the case obsessively, and for a while it was topic number one in the country. The hype was that the parents had murdered her. Later, they were completely exonerated, but their lives had been ruined not just by the hideous murder of their daughter but by what the media and public did to them.
That’s a far cry from Roy Moore (or any other person accused of sexual harassment), of course. But I bring it up as an example of my reaction to mob judgments fanned by the MSM into a frenzy and based on little evidence and/or suspect evidence.
The discussion I had with Bill in that thread yesterday and today is too long to summarize, but I’ll offer excerpts from a few of my comments here to give you the gist of it:
All “credible” means is that the story might be true—that it’s not incredible.
For example, if I said “John Smith sexually abused me when we were drifting in outer space while flying to Mars under our own power,” that would be an incredible story. Not believable. Literally impossible. But to craft a credible story, all I’d have to do is have a history that involves some proximity to the accused, and do a bit of research as to where he worked, etc.. Stuff that would be easy to find out.
Even better if I’d had some connection to him.
People who are out to get a politician in trouble through false accusations have a lot of information to work with. It also helps if it was long enough ago that there is no way to fact check. For example, with the restaurant where Moore’s accuser Nelson had supposedly met Moore, there is an extreme lack of information about the restaurant itself. Newspapers tried to research it or at least talk to the person who had owned it when the incident was supposed to have taken place, or find a photo to document the layout, and they had no success. The only people who came forward to talk about it said that the layout was not as the accuser described, the hiring practices were such that she would not have been hired at 15 (when she said she started), and no one ever remembered seeing her there or seeing Moore there for that matter. Quite a few people said they worked there or frequented the place and no one remembered him.
Couple that with the controversy about the yearbook signature and inscription and you get, in my opinion, a story that is credible in the sense of possible but a story that I think is most likely a lie.
You don’t convict people or condemn them or think them guilty merely because a story told about them is possibly true. That’s not my standard, and I don’t think it should be anyone else’s.
By the way, Moore has only 2 accusers. The other women have a very different story—that he dated them when they were young but of age, and acted respectfully to them. The fact that the teenage girls who apparently really did date Moore (when they were of legal age) all say he was basically respectful argues against Nelson’s (the yearbook lady) story being true, because his alleged behavior with her was so different.
I believe you are letting your dislike of Moore color your belief about his guilt or innocence. By the way, you are using the word “pedophile” incorrectly. That word is reserved for pre-pubescent children, and even if you accept the allegations about Moore as true they do not involve that group of victims at all. You need to get your terms straight, at the very least, before you make accusations.
Bill had also written this:
Roy Moore can, of course, take legal action against these ladies if he’d like. Won’t get him a Senate seat but might clear his name, if he’s innocent.
I’ve seen that sort of sentiment expressed by many other people, not just Bill. My reply is the following:
Your final paragraph shows a lack of understanding of how the law works. It would be almost impossible for Moore to clear his name in a court of law even if he is 100% innocent. Do you understand that if he were to sue his accusers, that the standard he would need to meet to win his case would be enormously high? Take a look. See also this.
The bottom line is that politicians almost never sue for defamation, and if they do they rarely win. That has nothing whatsoever to do with proving themselves innocent of the allegations, it has to do with the law of defamation against public figures, which works very strongly against them.
Bill also wrote:
An election is not a court trial. How many times does this need to be said? You can vote against someone if you have qualms a bit their character. You don’t have to prove it in court.
Taking Neo’s admonitions above into account, if this is such a slam-dunk conspiracy against Moore he should be able to unmask it.
I never said, nor did I imply, that it was a “slam-dunk conspiracy” against Moore. I am merely saying that there’s a good chance it is a conspiracy, every bit as good as the possibility that his two main accusers are telling the truth. In reply to Bill I wrote:
Now you say that if there’s a conspiracy he should be able to unmask it. Oh, really? Do you really think it’s that easy? Do you really think – once again – that if a person can’t prove his/her innocence, he/she is guilty?
And no, your proof doesn’t have to rise to the level of courtroom proof to believe someone is probably guilty. But credible accusations doesn’t cut it and shouldn’t cut it. Persuasive accusations would be better. What “persuades” you sure doesn’t persuade me.
Bill also wrote:
What you are suggesting is a conspiracy among several women to “take down” Roy Moore. There’s been plenty of condemning of Nelson, Corfman and the others, largely based on arguments from silence, even though he had a pattern of trolling underage girls. Not sure why any woman would want to come forward, ever, against a politician because she’s going to get dragged through the mud.
My reply was this:
I’m not suggesting a conspiracy of “several women” to take Moore down. I’m suggesting a political tactic by which the opposition (on the left in particular) conspires to find people willing to take Moore down. And if you don’t believe that sort of thing occurs, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn and several other things I’d like to sell you.
There are two women we’re talking about, by the way. The others merely seem to be alleging that he dated them with their mothers’ permission when they were of age but young. So what? What happens is that the operatives follow rumors, spread the word about what they’re looking for, find the women. They already knew their were rumors about the dating of the legal-aged teens (rumors I believe are true), and they start with that and then spread the word around that they’re looking for people who can say even more than that. The women’s motives are varied, but fame is a potent one, actually. Politics could be another (saying you’re a Trump voter doesn’t make it so). Still another is this (Lisa Bloom is Allred’s daughter, by the way, and I have read – don’t have time to find the source now – that this is a tactic of Allred’s as well):
A well-known women’s rights lawyer sought to arrange compensation from donors and tabloid media outlets for women who made or considered making sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump during the final months of the 2016 presidential race, according to documents and interviews.
California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill.
Women who do this sort of thing have often have led chaotic and troubled lives (sometimes they have also made multiple accusations against different people), and they have plenty of reason to need financial help.
Let me reiterate that I’m not trying to pick on Bill. But this sort of rush to judgment presses my buttons and always has. As I’ve said many times, I don’t like Moore, and was displeased when he won the primary, even before the allegations came out. It doesn’t matter to me, though, in terms of the issue of the allegations of sexual misconduct.
Nor does any of this mean I think the women are liars. As I’ve also said many times, they may indeed be telling the truth. But women and men lie at times, for many reasons, and it’s not even all that unusual. Sometimes they lie very credibly. Sometimes they lie while demonstrating a lot of emotion. I’ve seen it many times; so have you. Sometimes they even believe their own lies—or come to believe their own lies. I think we should be very very careful about coming to conclusions unless the evidence for something is very powerful.
It bears repeating that two women accused Moore of sexual assault. The other accusations were window dressing (padding the numbers so to speak). An anomaly was the 28 year old that accused Moore of grabbing her butt when she was a client of his.
Leigh Corfman, 14, accused him of fondling her
Beverly Nelson, 16, accused him of sexual assault
Debbie Gibson, 17, dated a few months and mother approved
Gloria Deason, 18, few dates and mother approved
Gina Richardson, 18, one date and unwanted kiss
Wendy Miller, 16, accused him of asking her on date, but mother refused
Kelly Tharp, 17, accused him of asking her, but never dated
Becky Gray, 22, accused him of asking her, but never dated
Tina Johnson, 28, accused him of groping her in 1991
There is a saying that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” In addition, the last-minute surprise gotcha-claim has long history, especially by Democrats. Add to that that there is no claim of recent untoward behavior (especially given the conventional wisdom that sexual predators seldom stop their behavior).
.
So, overall, I did not find the accusations “credible”, in the meaning of “having a reasonable likelihood of truth.” I would categorize them as “possible” or, perhaps, “remotely possible”. All in all, given the unfolding of events, while I would not have voted for Moore in the primary, I’d’ve had no qualms about voting for him in the election.
One sad consequence is that the use of these types of last-minute accusations has been further encouraged.
Well, it worked. All the press had to do was come up with a plausible claim, and specifically time it to do the most damage. Does anyone believe a 40-year-old story just _happened_ to break when it was too late to change the ballot?
There’s literally no defense against this kind of journalistic mugging, and as we’ve seen, the press is willing to plumb more and more depths in the pursuit of their agenda.
#Metoo, #Bringbackourgirls, #Iamagullible, #Ecetera.
These people are tedious.
Credibility is a decision of the finder of fact. The person making the allegations should be under oath and subject to full cross examination. Even people under oath lie. They lie all the time. This is due process; not the political process.
With Franken, we had a picture. With Weinstein we had volume and other stuff.
Anita Hill was under oath but there were no witnesses to the events other than her and Clarence Thomas. She was crossed and many other witnesses testified. While her allegations were serious, the body politic did not find her credible.
Neo,
You are not going to get anywhere arguing legal principles as, or qua, moral principles, with Bill.
What he is probably constitutionally incapable of grasping, is that these legal principles have in fact arisen as expressions of the moral sensibility of the people, to paraphrase what might have been an apocryphal Blackstone observation.
His agenda flows from his moral sensibilities and notions of obligation, which are antinomian, much less formal, and more emotion based than most of the commenters here.
He not only wishes to keep his skirts clean, he wishes to make sure that everyone else is convinced of his doing so, and to be convinced of the fact that you understand that for Bill, all men are brothers … even if it kills you.
For me, the individual mandate was enough of a reason for me to leave Obama to freeze to death in 6 inches of frigid ditch water if the stars ever aligned themselves so. For Bill, no loss of liberty ever leaves one so lacking that there is not at least some emotionally satisfying opportunity to be had for redemptive moral posturing while being transported on the tumbrils.
Since at least 1973 feminism has been seeping through the culture. The movement was based on the idea that women can do anything a man can, and that ALL jobs/careers should be available to women. But then it was decided that women were sometimes treated badly by their male workmates. Usually it was sophomoric sexual posturing or crude/unacceptable language. Corporations were quick to pick up on this and soon HR departments were holding training sessions for promoting understanding of women’s rights and sensibilities. Handling complaints about men’s treatment of women on the job became one of the HR department’s big activities.
I lived in that history and was affected by it. I saw the way the wind was blowing and bent over backward to avoid any kind of sexual nuance toward female coworkers at all. It wasn’t easy. Human nature being what it is, there are many different types of females in an airline company. Some are looking to advance to the top. Some are looking to find a husband. Some are doing the job strictly for the travel benefits. Some are sexually promiscuous and looking for sex. Some are supporting a man who can’t support them. Etc. Some are open minded and tolerant, others are close minded and intolerant. Some are comfortable in ribald men’s company, others are not. The 70s and 80s were a minefield of getting used to the feminist demands and the accusations that came down the pike.
Where am I going with these thoughts? Just this. Feminism declared war on men and the culture was rearranged to meet their demands. Tell me you were sexually abused or assaulted. If you want me to believe you, there had better be a record of you reporting it to the proper authorities./ (rape – police, sexual innuendo or words – Human Resources, your husband, your boy friend, your parents, etc.) Women don’t have to take any unwanted sexual advances and haven’t had to for many years now. They have power and can no longer hide behind the claim that they have been abused and they have just suffered it in silence. Anytime old accusations arte trotted out against any candidate, my mind set is that they are probably an election tactic. Before I will believe any old accusations I have to see proof that the accuser reported the abuse to the proper authorities.
I understand the tendency of even bright people such as Bill to place their faith in what they deem to be the “credible”.
It may be a person whom they find credible because they think they discern that quality in someone’s personal style or mode of presentation or even their material circumstances; or it may be someone’s version of events that they find credible because, say, the asserted time-line makes sense to them and they can discern no obvious holes in their story.
I get that. I do. It’s human.
But, respectfully, alarm bells really should go off when we hear someone condemned just because their accuser is said to be a “credible” person asserting a credible allegation.
I’ve lived in Australia’s crime capital for the last 17 years and until a couple of years ago practiced law here.
Sometimes very accomplished new clients attended my office distraught because they felt such shame at being ripped off by a fraudster because he/she seemed so “credible” they had to be told not to feel gullible or stupid.
Con-men without the ability to present credibly are soon weeded out of the field – which, by a process of elimination, leaves us with a pool of entirely credible and very convincing con-men out there seeking marks, does it not? Fraudsters who lack credibility don’t eat.
It also works the other way, which has often been a balm to my heart.
Several times a client would attend the community legal centre devoid of shoes or shirt. Sometimes unwashed and always quite personally eccentric such people were, at the very least, quite unprepossessing. Certainly they did not, at first or even second blush, present in a way that most people would consider” credible”.
Nevertheless, if their stories held water – which they usually did – they deserved their day in court: and that’s often when their true qualities shone through.
So often when the other side to the dispute, (usually a former partner with monied family and a smoother, more practiced and “credible” presentation), spun their version the facts held together.
But so often their case held water only because they seemed to be able to recall every single detail of every single long-ago conversation, however innocuous. Likewise these people always seemed somehow to be able to recall every single date and time of day and location of of every innocuous meeting they ever had that was germane to the case – and yes, they usually admitted nothing and no detail, however small, of what the other side said.
Such practiced and smooth people always sound credible when their version is pleaded in writing or is related by them in a lawyer’s office or to an audience or when it is recounted in a newspaper article but as all lawyers and judges eventually learn – people, if they are honest, just don’t have perfect recall about even recent facts, let alone long ago things that they had no reason at the time to suspect might one day matter.
On the other hand, I will never forget those times when one of my unprepossessing and superficially unimpressive clients would admit in court to gaps in their memory and conceded points that hurt their case, (and which they could have gotten away with denying had they wanted to). But they didn’t want to: because, to my surprise and to the client’s eternal credit, lying and dishonesty was beneath them and they simply wanted to tell the truth and nothing more. Such people were rare but thankfully not as rare as you might fear. It was as if such people, many of whom had never read a book had instinctively knew the truth of the words assigned to Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons:
“When a man takes an oath he’s holding his own self in his hands, like water, and if he opens his fingers, he needn’t hope to find himself again”.
What a shame that so many people of both sexes don’t understand or choose to ignore that truth.
Appealing surface attributes of an accuser can and do impress us and can make him or her appear to us very credible – but externals can also mislead us and so we must therefore be on guard against being swayed by their appeal just as we must guard against condemning out-of-hand the less physically impressive and less superficially appealing.
Likewise, an accuser’s version of events may sound accurate enough in their details to be true but that web may be spun from nothing more than lies – sometimes brilliantly so.
It’s a shame but the truth is that it takes a full and open enquiry where an accused can put the allegations to proof by testing the evidence such that only a court or semi-judicial tribunal can offer for the truth to emerge.
Those who haven’t been denounced unjustly by a false accuser are very fortunate indeed and for good reason may not understand my point – but those who have suffered that ordeal will relate.
Here in Southern California we had the McMartin Preschool case, with the lives of members of the familiy of the school’s founder completely ruined by CrAzy allegations elicited from preschool kids.
Something I learned as a young man is the first tale told has the advantage.
That becomes the starting point of the “truth”. The second person is now left with proving why the first story isn’t the “truth”. It’s a natural advantage.
Over time the veracity of the stories may be sorted out, but always be the telling the story first.
The saddest part of this affair is that it widens the already yawning gap between the GOP establishment and the Tea Party/insurgent wing. Mitch McConnell’s PAC ran $4 MILLION in ads against Mo Brooks solely because he is a member of the House Freedom Caucus. There was no reason for interfering to this extent in a primary except a sense of entitlement by McConnell.
The appointed incumbent Luther Strange had huge baggage that would probably have sunk his candidacy once the Left wing attack machine focused on him. His appointment by the disgraced governor after then Attorney General Strange’s department was looking into the Gov’s shenanigans stank to high heaven. The governor then resigned.
Lots of blame to go around though. Once Moore won the primary he was torpedoed by people like Sen. Richard Shelby whose call for people to write in other people handed the election to Jones.
Plenty of other GOP establishment types like McConnell and Paul Ryan and Ivanka Trump did not heed Neo’s admonition. Probably because they preferred a Democrat to someone not like them.
This is a huge loss to the GOP. I could see this costing the President a conservative Supreme Court pick. We already know that Murk and Collins will vote against anyone who is not an abortionist so the best we can hope for is another Kennedy or God forbid a Souter or John Paul Stevens.
Ira, that’s a good point you make – I recall reading about that case and others like it.
It is very, very scary how readily for many people – even bright ones – charges, if repeated often enough and loudly enough and if asserted by people or agencies whom they respect enough – soon rise in their minds to “facts”.
I’ll see you your example and raise you one Lindy Chamberlain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_Chamberlain-Creighton
Lindy Chamberlain, who suffered the loss of her new-born baby daughter, Azaria, when she was taken and eaten by a dingo at the base of Ayer’s Rock, is undeniably Australia’s most famously and egregiously wronged accused of modern times.
Her treatment remains a permanent national disgrace and scandal.
Here’s an important point we must always keep in front of us: a very big part of what stoked the mass hysteria and mass condemnation of Mrs Chamberlain in the minds of most Australians at the time was her personal demeanour filmed and broadcast to the nation over the hours and days immediately following her loss that most Australians interpreted as just too matter-of-fact and accepting of her baby’s disappearance.
I recall listening intently, like most Australians, to the radio talk back and tv shows over the following months as well as to the debates in law school classes where nothing else seemed to be discussed for months among staff and students.
People – mainly women for some reason – denounced her as the killer because she “wasn’t upset, the way any normal mother would be”, or words to that effect. That was the heart of it, it still seems to me.
Lindy and her husband Pastor Michael Chamberlain were people of deep religious faith and members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church and because of that faith held to and were comforted by the belief that their daughter was in Paradise.
So there was that. There was also the fact that the very private Lindy was probably just not of a demonstrative temperament anyway.
It is frightening to consider the truth that in the court of public opinion it is never enough to be innocent – one must also and at all times ensure that one appears and speaks and even dresses in such a way as to satisfy the mob that one is not “weird” and therefore guilty.
There really is a reason why civilized nations replaced mob rule with court judgments. We have seen for ourselves how quickly — and wrongly — the mob can “judge” when the law does not rule.
Ms. Neo. Thank you for your thoughtful piece. When we have politicians, who jump on and say things about smoke being there, so there must be fire, that doesn’t help. Which leaves out smoke screen.
Perhaps you might reconsider the Ramseys. Not long ago records were unsealed which reveal perhaps the authorities bungled the job, and the parents didn’t good answers, and yes, they might have been responsible.
BrianE Says:
December 19th, 2017 at 8:04 pm
Something I learned as a young man is the first tale told has the advantage.
That becomes the starting point of the “truth”. The second person is now left with proving why the first story isn’t the “truth”. It’s a natural advantage.
Over time the veracity of the stories may be sorted out, but always be the telling the story first.
* *
“A lie can go around the world before the truth can get its boots on.”
Attributed in various forms to just about every public figure that might have said something similar.
DNW Says:
December 19th, 2017 at 6:38 pm
…
His agenda flows from his moral sensibilities and notions of obligation, which are antinomian, much less formal, and more emotion based than most of the commenters here.
He not only wishes to keep his skirts clean, he wishes to make sure that everyone else is convinced of his doing so,
* *
I won’t presume to read Bill’s mind, but the phenomenon of “virtue signalling” is well known. The following article, which I excerpted at length today in the “Spurlock” thread*, explains how the liberals have developed compassion into an addiction (my son coined “virtue addict” in response to reading it).
https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/the-case-against-liberal-compassion/
*
http://neoneocon.com/2017/12/14/spurlock-denounces-himself/#comment-2336135
I concur with my learned friend, AesopFan, at both
9:42 & 9:44.
Well said.
I think we might see more evidence – to one side or the other – surfacing if either the accusers go forward with their charges legally; or if they just disappear now that Moore lost the election.
AesopFan:
I predict the charges will never go to court. They are too old and too unprovable. That’s the beauty of using the press for this purpose: you never have to substantiate your charges with evidence. Allred is well aware of that, IMHO.
Each side (Moore and I believe Nelson) has threatened a defamation suit against the other. I don’t think we’ll see those suits either. Moore would have a nearly impossible burden of proof if he tried to sue Nelson for defamation. And if Nelson tried to sue Moore for defamation, as far as I know she would only be able to say that Moore called her a liar, and I don’t think that’s enough to win a defamation suit against someone you have accused of sexual assault 40 years old.
And if the allegations were politically motivated (which I tend to believe), then they have accomplished their main motive already, anyway.
Milwaukee:
Thanks for the compliment.
But as far as the Ramseys go, that’s tabloid stuff. There is no credible (and most definitely no persuasive) evidence that they are guilty of anything regarding their daughter’s death. These rumors and this tabloid-spread innuendo dies hard. Mrs. Ramsey is dead, but Mr. Ramsey lives on, and the newspapers will never stop trying to frame him.
Neo @10:10. Agreed.
There’s also another, “threshold”, issue that prevents more cases being filed than any other: the likely financial capacity of your defendant.
Is he/she of sufficient means to be able to satisfy (ie.pay out), any verdict and judgement you might obtain after your long, tiring and expensive litigation?
A verdict against a straw man is no victory worth the effort.
A wise Supreme Court Registrar once gave me a tip as a cub-lawyer: “Never let the principle run away with your client’s money”.
Excellent advice, that.
Ira, you probably also remember the Wenatchee, Washington cases about the same time, or maybe a few years later. Talk about a witch hunt!
1996. Atlanta Olympics. Security guard Richard Jewell discovers a bomb and triggers the evacuation of Olympic Park before anyone is killed. The usual culprits, namely the low IQ twit/hick on NBC, Tom Brokaw, and CNN, breathlessly tar Jewell as the bomber. He dies less than 10 years later of health complications, despite settlements from NBC and CNN. 1996 was peak “credible allegations” it would seem.
Remember the days when a black child can get himself brutally murderedfor whistling at a white woman, democrats are bringing us right back to that godforsaken era.
Btw, when will Al Franken resign as he promised? the last day right before his term expires?
The claims didn’t work, since Moore didn’t lose because of them. He lost because the GOP establishment withdrew their support, effectively throwing him under the bus. This gave permission for voters to indulge their sinful pride by staying home, exactly as intended.
The GOP withdrew their support not because they thought the allegations were true, but because McConnell didn’t like Moore. Both he and Brooks had publicly declared that they wouldn’t vote for McConnell as Majority Leader.
This entire kabuki theater was really about one man keeping his position as Majority Leader, then fooling everyone into thinking it was about something else.
It’s so frustrating and discouraging to see how many people jump to conclusions and judgment, instead of waiting for good info–including especially our media. Got to disagree with you as to the ultimate culpability of the Ramseys though. My initial thought was that they must have been involved in their daughter’s death, but I was open-minded and have followed the case closely since. I’ve seen several presentations regarding the case as part of continuing legal education for prosecutors, and I’m over 90% convinced that the parents are involved. Not sure if it was the father abusing her and it went too far, or if her brother dealt her a grievous blow to the head with a flashlight and they covered it up. This conclusion/opinion is not based on tabloids at all.
So democrats’ outcry for sexual assaults against women all of a sudden disappeared into thin air following the end of AL election. The 10 or so female democrat senators remain completely silent when AL Franken is not showing any sign to make good of his promise to resign over sexual assault allegations, some democrats are even openly expressing their regret to call for his resignation prematurely and wishes to recant that demand. unlike right before the AL special election democrats don’t seem to care much about sexual allegations anymore, no demand for Chris Matthews to resign after a report that NBC paid thousands to buy the silence of a woman who was filing sexual assault complaints against Matthews. everything changes after the election, beg for one to question, do democrats care about social injustices, or do they just care about elections? They went back to their old ways to protect their own from abuse allegations and silent the accusers, there was never a purge as suspect by commenters here or anything like that, they just put on a show to claim the moral high ground over the Republicans and Roy Moore right before the election, just like the clockwork of race baiting we have been witnessing every two years.
The left in America is especially evil because democrat voters in America are especially stupid. When evil people keep on being rewarded for doing evil things without repercussions, their evilness escalates…
That is a fair enough point, and I can neither read Bill’s mind nor intuit his motivations without evidence, either.
However, Bill was good enough, or unguarded enough, to answer a simple question for me during our final discussion that nailed his overall stance down quite unequivocally.
Bill had consistently claimed to be a “rule of law” man.
When posed a hypothetical in which the deportation of illegal aliens would lead to a restoration of respect for and the effective return to a rule of law; and then asked if he would accept such legal means to a greater legal end, he replied: No.
He felt that the human costs to the illegals would be too high, even if granting the stipulations I had included regarding their just treatment in-process.
So much for Bill’s commitment to the rule of law, then.
I can’t take someone like that seriously when they once again start posturing about law and moral principles and civic duties..
The accusation about how Clintons murdering those who know their secrets and about to testify against them, while covering up by make them appear to be suicide are pretty credible too if possibility is the only criteria. It is very possible that the Clintons have broken the law, it is very possible that someone in the know of their secrets might got in trouble with the law too and might rat them out for lighter sentencing, it is very possible that Clintons would murder these people and set them up as suicide, I don’t have any proof but they are all very possible therefore the accusations are all credible in the same logic Liberals are applying to allegations against Moore.
Whenever someone rushes to judgment on scant or suspicious evidence, as the press so often does especially when it fits into their preconceived ideas, my first thought is of the immortal Emily Latella.
There are almost no consequences for them for being wrong but there are often terrible consequences for those they’re wrong about. It doesn’t matter to them, they just move on to the next rush to judgment.
That’s one of the reasons I have such great disdain for the press. I never believe anything they say if it supports their obvious agenda unless I can prove it from other sources.
The “conspiracy” strawman is getting boring.
How on earth could so many women unknown to each other hatch up a consipiracy and get the Post go for it? Why that’s ludicrous! Of course it is.
The common factor makes it obvious. The “conspiracy” is the Post reporters. All they had to do was get together a bunch of unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable allegations, by asking if necessary thousands of people, until they had enough of them to be worth printing.
Another aspect to this:
Why didn’t McConnell use this against Moore in the second round of the GOP primary?
Do you think he didn’t have any connections in AL politics that could tell him about “what everybody knew” regarding Moore?
The answer is simple: he didn’t use the allegations because THEY DIDN’T EXIST before the WaPo invented them.
After Moore won the primary, McConnell and company pretended to be shocked, SHOCKED!, at the allegations. They gave permission for their more gullible followers to throw Moore under the bus.
So McConnell got all the benefits of a Democrat smear campaign without having to get any of the dirt on himself. Isn’t that convenient?
Dave Says:
December 20th, 2017 at 9:24 am
The left in America is especially evil because democrat voters in America are especially stupid. When evil people keep on being rewarded for doing evil things without repercussions, their evilness escalates…
* * *
Since one popular definition of insanity is “repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results” then we would have to deduce that the left is evil but not insane.
On the other hand, they did nominate Hillary…
Matt_SE Says:
December 20th, 2017 at 3:42 pm
Another aspect to this:
Why didn’t McConnell use this against Moore in the second round of the GOP primary?
Do you think he didn’t have any connections in AL politics that could tell him about “what everybody knew” regarding Moore?
The answer is simple: he didn’t use the allegations because THEY DIDN’T EXIST before the WaPo invented them.
Frederick Says:
December 20th, 2017 at 3:31 pm
…
The common factor makes it obvious. The “conspiracy” is the Post reporters. All they had to do was get together a bunch of unsubstantiated and unsubstantiatable allegations, by asking if necessary thousands of people, until they had enough of them to be worth printing.
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The two allegations of clearly abusive behavior (whether they actually occurred or not) may have been underground for years, but not considered credible (given their scarcity and the counter-testimony of the “respectable” dates) until the Weinstein Watermain burst and gave the Post some cover to go forward.
Irv Says:
December 20th, 2017 at 12:35 pm
Whenever someone rushes to judgment on scant or suspicious evidence, as the press so often does especially when it fits into their preconceived ideas, my first thought is of the immortal Emily Latella.
There are almost no consequences for them for being wrong but there are often terrible consequences for those they’re wrong about. It doesn’t matter to them, they just move on to the next rush to judgment.
That’s one of the reasons I have such great disdain for the press. I never believe anything they say if it supports their obvious agenda unless I can prove it from other sources.
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Almost is a very slim exception. Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw paid a small price (equivalent to pleading down from an aggravated felony to a misdemeanor IMO), and some lesser lights had to be fired when their lying became too blatant to obfuscate, but no one will even get a bad rep for “just reporting the news” on Moore IF the allegations were, in fact, false.
I have about reached the point where I don’t even think about believing anything until at least 3 days after the story breaks, and some of the counter-analysis and exculpatory evidence can surface.
Dave Says:
December 20th, 2017 at 12:13 pm
The accusation about how Clintons murdering those who know their secrets and about to testify against them, while covering up by make them appear to be suicide are pretty credible too if possibility is the only criteria….I don’t have any proof but they are all very possible therefore the accusations are all credible in the same logic Liberals are applying to allegations against Moore.
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Hard to argue with Dave on this one.
And its not just the Clinton v. Moore comparison that applies.
neo-neocon Says:
December 19th, 2017 at 10:10 pm
AesopFan:
I predict the charges will never go to court. They are too old and too unprovable. That’s the beauty of using the press for this purpose: you never have to substantiate your charges with evidence. Allred is well aware of that, IMHO.
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I concur.
AesopFan and Dave:
And I am quite skeptical about both sets of accusations: Nelson’s against Moore and Broaddrick’s against Clinton.
Frederick:
“So many women” is two. The others were women who seem to have actually dated Moore and have nothing much to report except that fact. If memory serves me, the WaPo found one “credible” accuser and the daters. Allred found the other “credible” accuser—after the WaPo story came out. And in my opinion it’s likely that—as with Allred’s daughter Lisa Bloom—Allred probably offered the Moore accuser (Nelson) some perks.
And the WaPo found the women in its story, not the other way around. (Much as Sabrina Erdely did at the University of Virginia, perhaps.) You go to the right place, follow leads and rumors, you interview people, you ask around, and if you talk to enough people you’ll find the ones you’re seeking, or someone willing to tell the story you want told.
You are either naive or pretending to be naive, because it’s not hard to see how it could happen that way. Whether it did happen that way we don’t know.
@neoneocon:You are either naive or pretending to be naive, because it’s not hard to see how it could happen that way.
Erm, maybe read what I wrote again? We’re not disagreeing.
Frederick:
I guess I read it quickly and didn’t see the sarcasm—but now that you point it out, it’s there. My error.
http://neoneocon.com/2017/12/18/what-are-the-odds-of-franken-actually-leaving-the-senate/#comment-2336079
Well, since apparently this was necromanced time forward, my old reply may as well be rerouted from here.
As a disclaimer, I don’t quite care what people believe. But humans do apparently.
Ymarsakar:
Remember that old syllogism bit?
So, here’s the one I get from your last comment:
That’s meant to be a joke, of course. I realize that you’re human. But it reminded me of a discussion we had years ago in which I pointed out that you often talk of humans as though they are the “other.”