Thursday, January 16, 2020

Bernie Gets The Pub Treatment From CNN

Whelp, "Berniebros," now you know what the Pubs have felt like for the past, well, basically, ever...:
   Even in her set up, Phillips seemed to reject Sanders’ earlier denials of the story: “Senator Sanders, CNN reported yesterday, and Senator Warren confirmed in a statement, that in 2018, you told her that you did not believe that a woman could win the election. Why did you say that?
   While Sanders made these points and repeatedly denied the allegation, Phillips left many of us confused when, literally just after he again denied the story, she asked him again if he denied the story. Some in the audience laughed at the weird follow up but that was followed by gasps when Phillips then turned to Warren and said “Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?
   Phillips then turned to Klobuchar and asked her how she felt about people making such comments to female candidates.  [My emphasis]
   Holy crap. That's blatant.
   I'm too lazy to look for it, but there's a tweet bopping around (FWTW) asserting something like: the "lesson" of "#MeToo" is that women should not be doubted. Ergo we should not doubt Warren's accusation. So now it's not even: every accusation of sexual assault made by a woman is true; it's every accusation of any kind made by a woman is true. Or, perhaps: everything ever said by any woman is true. Wonder what the rule is if a woman accuses a woman?
   I've always been 100% on-board with efforts to identify and address actual sexual harassment. Like everybody else I know. It's hardly an exceptional view. As far as I'm concerned, one actual case of serious, clear sexual harassment is enough to give someone the boot, no second chances. I've got no tolerance for that shit whatsoever. But the history of feminism for about the past 40 years is a story of moving past the reasonable positions of old-school, liberal feminism. A story, that is, of radicalization. Which means: crazification.
   Identify and address actual instances of sexual harassment is a sound and unobjectionable principle that we'd all go to the mat for. Believe every accusation is lunacy. Take the case at hand: Warren is a known liar, and she's known to lie in order to advance her career. Bernie's kind of a nut, obviously, with a crackpot view of government and economics...but I, at least, don't know of any major (i.e.: more-than-ordinary-for-a-politician) accusations of lying against him. He has a perfectly coherent set of reasons for the proposition that he doesn't believe what she accused him of saying--for example he thinks that, in a sense, a woman already did win. And it's kind of slimy to accuse someone of calling you a liar when they deny a scurrilous accusation against themselves. Anyway, as Bernie points out: in this sense, Warren's calling him a liar, too. In fact, she's calling him a liar and a sexist.
   Anyway. Warren's accusation isn't credible. And she isn't credible. I'd be willing to bet some money against the truth of her accusation. I'm not a betting man, nor a rich one, but I don't think I'd hesitate to bet $100 on it.

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