I Believe Her

This is the face of a man that attempted to rape a 15 year old girl. He was 17 at the time. The incident itself happened a long time ago, way back in 1982, when both of them were at a high school party.

Memory is famously unreliable. However, the woman remembers the incident, and (significantly) told her peers about it when it happened, told her therapist about it not long after that, and suffered sufficiently lasting emotional trauma that she later told her husband about a few times, most recently when this man appeared on a shortlist of nominees for the Supreme Court.

The man claims that none of it happened, and that all of it is a complete fabrication, and that they were never even at any party together, ever. He probably believes it, so he is not lying, as such, but it does raise questions about how cavalier one has to be about sexual assault in order to attempt to rape a girl and then completely forget about it.

Let's come at this from a different direction: What does the woman have to gain by coming forward? She can prevent this man from getting a promotion. What does she have to lose? Her life as she knew it has already been irrevocably altered. So if you believe that a successful professional would willingly perjure herself, sabotage her career, AND expose herself, her family, and her loved ones to a lifetime of unprecedented levels of vile hatred, harassment and ugliness from the reactionary supporters of this man just to prevent him from getting a promotion, then you must be the dumbest fucking person on planet earth.

The other issue here is the idea that the man should be held accountable for something he did 38 years ago. Does his attempt to rape a girl when he was a minor disqualify him from getting a promotion? Intent matters, and this man has never apologized, shown no remorse, taken zero ownership, and worked as hard as he can to deny, distract, and deflect. So too have his supporters. Only a rich white man, enabled and supported by other rich white men, could behave in this way and actually expect to get promoted.

Whether or not this man gets his promotion the most compelling thing we learned during the process is how the GOP treats women: terribly. You would think that alone would disqualify someone from the Supreme Court, but then you remember that it does not disqualify you from the office of the president of the United States, and it all makes perfect sense.

Not for nothing, but this guy also lied under oath, which, what the hell?