MANCHESTER, Conn.
How times change. Two years ago the loudest and most politically correct voices in the country were proclaiming that all women accusing men of sexual misconduct were to be believed without question, no matter how dated, uncorroborated and opportunistic the accusations, no matter even if the accuser and accused were minors at the time of the alleged misconduct.
No, ordinary due process of law was sexist and anyone who believed in it should just shut up.
Brett Kavanaugh
Of course what those voices really meant two years ago was that basic fairness was not so important amid the stakes involved, political control of the Supreme Court -- that basic fairness should be waived to prevent the appointment of another conservative Republican to the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh.
Now that the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, former Vice President Joe Biden, has been accused of sexual misconduct by a woman who was on his Senate staff 27 years ago, many of the politically correct voices from two years ago are silent. Their silence means that preventing President Trump's re-election is infinitely more important than fairness to Biden's accuser and any exploration of Biden's character.
If the politically correct voices could have been candid about this with Kavanaugh and if they could be candid about it now with Biden, they might be persuasive. People who very much wanted a conservative majority on the Supreme Court were not inclined to grant credibility to Kavanaugh's accuser or to let the nominee's fitness for office be defined by something he may have done before he was old enough to vote. Similarly, people who consider Trump reprehensible personally and his policies abhorrent have reason to support Biden regardless of his personal deficiencies.
After all, the accusers of Kavanaugh and Biden never came forward contemporaneously -- never followed the rules of fairness and due process whose benefit they now seek for themselves, never complained to the police. Yes, that might have made their burden heavier, but due process isn't a mere personal convenience. It is fairness to all society.
Joe Biden on the stump.
— Photo by Michael Stokes
Besides, politics has always been a matter of judgment, degree, and tradeoffs and often a matter of the lesser of two evils. Even if the accusers of Kavanaugh and Biden have told the whole truth about the misconduct they allege, when it happened they took the easy way out, if understandably enough, and then, decades later, tried to overturn national politics and policy with their personal grievances. What they allege cannot be proven to judicial standards, so construing it is left to politics, which is now so riven that the character of officeholders means little and the results of policy almost everything.
Who cares much anymore if your candidate is a rapist or even a mass murderer as long as you get what you want from the government?
Sad as all this is, it is funny to watch the leading women prospects for the Democratic vice presidential nomination proclaiming their belief in Biden's denial of misconduct, and funny to watch Connecticut's senior U.S. senator, Richard Blumenthal, ignore the accusation.
Two years ago Blumenthal was the most fervent in the “believe all women without question” mob. Now the best he can do is to delay his endorsement of Biden. With the tables turned, Blumenthal can offer only "social distancing."
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester.
